


Bliss

by hornblowerfic_archivist



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Graphic Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-16
Updated: 2009-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:09:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hornblowerfic_archivist/pseuds/hornblowerfic_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Andre Cotard is engaged. What's more, it seems he's managed to snatch up one of the most desirable women in all of Britannia. But returning to her ancestral home to announce the upcoming nuptials, he uncovers a few alarming surprises, not the least of which being where his heart really lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Hornblowerfic.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hornblowerfic.com). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in January 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [Hornblowerfic.com collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hornblowerfic/profile).

Bliss was the most exquisite ideal of feminine beauty, with her smooth pale skin and glossy chestnut ringlets. Her eyes were gems set a-twinkle with the starlight and her rose-colored mouth perfect and full. She was named in commemoration of the elation her papa felt at her birth for, even as a babe, Bliss Blessed Moore seemed perfection. Her voice was like that of the sweet ringing of tiny bells and when she sang, it was as the language of angels; she moved from alto to soprano with an ease it took the masters many years to learn. She was lithe and nubile of figure and graceful of poise. She was, in a word, flawless.

It was for all this and more that Major Andre Cotard fell in love with her upon first he saw her, as did most men after a fashion. He was serving in India beneath her father, Colonel Alfred Moore, at which point he made her acquaintance for her papa could not bear to be parted from her.

Though he did not approve of her fraternization with his men, he made an exception in Cotard’s case for the Colonel found him to be an uncommon man among his soldiers. Moore admired the difficult choice his subordinate had made, to abandon the land of his home country, if not the ideals he held for her future, and to fight for those very ideals alongside the same men his own people had declared the enemy.

It did not go unnoticed that Andre was, in fact, of the gentry in France and had flourished as a young man in the tutelage of an affluent Duc, an old family friend whose land bordered the Cotard family estate. A hot-blooded Gaul he may have been, but a rich one at that and, though that was ostensibly of little relevance to Bliss’ father when it came to his precious child, it would be a lie to deny that it assisted matters considerably.

Any affair, the Colonel was helpless to resist the will of his cherished daughter. Though not properly betrothed, on his return to England, Cotard agreed to join the Moores at their stately home in Scotland. It would seem that this would be the end of the tale but, in fact, it is just beginning for life and love had a funny way about it.

The carriage carrying the Major rolled to smooth halt upon the gravel drive of Kingsharrow Manse, home to the Colonel and his darling Bliss, waking him from his light slumber. He had only just returned to Great Britain and tarried not long in Plymouth before setting off to join his intended at her impressive residence near Inverness.

It had been a lengthy journey and his mind was still foggy with drowsiness, but he could not recall for the life of him if the existence of additional kin had ever been discussed, or even mentioned, for that matter. And yet, there they stood on the great stone steps of the manor, waiting to greet him. There were two of them, one young lady and a gentleman; Cotard could detect their familial relation instantly for the resemblance was uncanny.

The male of the duo was so alike the Colonel, Andre guessed it must be his son. His richly ginger hair was pulled back securely in an orderly queue, his skin pale with only a hint of freckling. He had broad shoulders, dark eyes and the distinguished cheekbones of his family. And yet, quite contradictory to the Colonel’s disciplined rigidity, this younger Moore walked with a casual, almost arrogant swagger; he held a nearly mocking smirk upon his thin lips. Cotard thought that perchance, from his demeanor, he had already had his drink for the day, and then some, though it was barely past noonday.

The other was an unassuming gentlewoman. She would have been considered pleasantly handsome though not particularly striking or generously attractive had she not had the misfortune of being judged against Bliss’ natural radiance. Her listless auburn hair was similar to that of her associations, her brown eyes larger and more temperate while her flesh was dotted all over in freckles. Her mouth was a lovely pink bow emphasizing the pretty oval shape of her face and held no contempt, unlike the man standing beside her. Overall, there was a manner of intelligence about her, an extraordinary and dignified bearing; in that, she was much comparable the Colonel. Andre felt perhaps she was someone he could be friendly with.

“Good day, old chap,” called the smug young man. He sighed, pulling a cigarillo from his pocket and waving it about between his fingers as he gestured. “Honestly, I think we’ve been standing here all day awaiting your entrance.” He snapped his fingers and a brisk older gentleman appeared, bowing crisply. “Rogers, the Major’s belongings.”

Rogers, the footman, barely registered his master’s haughtiness. Though Andre was sure he saw a faint, fond smile turn the corners of his rigid mouth when the lady said tactfully, “Rogers, please, if you will take Major Cotard’s effects to the chamber that has been prepared for him.” He nodded briskly and she re-focused her attentions on Cotard. “We are sorry our papa could not be here to greet you himself for he much looked forward to your arrival, but business has unexpectedly called him away.”

“Oh, Dodie, no need for such formalities! He is to be our brother after all,” scoffed the Colonel’s son, for now their identities were certain. There was an awkward pause as if no presentation was needed, which in fact they were. Colonel Moore had somehow failed to mention his son, Frederick, himself a retired captain in the British army; a severe injury had taken him out of action. Or so they said, though it was his fondness for a snifter that had ended his commission prematurely. Equally had he neglected to reference his second and oldest daughter, Dorothea Grieve, who had lived -undaunted, it must be said- in the shadow of her sister’s charm for seven and twenty years.

When Frederick finally understood the uncomfortable mis-communication, he let out a wry laugh, clapping his hands together in sardonic delight. “I take it our esteemed father has not spoken of us,” he grinned and made the necessary introductions, perceiving cunningly the curious expression on Dorothea’s face. His poor, dear Dodie; he would have paid his father’s usual forgetfulness no mind if it weren’t for her. She was the finest of them all, why was he the only one sober--ha, bloody, ha--enough to see it. This Major Cotard, at least, was considerate of her as he bowed graciously and kissed softly her slender hand.

To Andre’s credit, he was doing rather well in the situation, despite his considerable shock. He was a man of overt emotion and his surprisement was ample, though he did his best, and succeeded in his own mind, to be cordial and courteous. They could sense his discomfort though they felt he recovered himself uncommon well. Especially Dorothea, who had quite taken to his charm, his suave demeanor. This was a man who knew women, Edmund thought slyly, a trait he both admired and envied.

How jarring it was to see these two, who were so similar to their sister and yet could not have differed more greatly. To realize that the man Cotard had spoke so freely with, confided in, held in exceptional admiration, had never felt the need to remark upon his other children. He knew of their mother, Georgiana, and the manner of her death some years back for of these things the Colonel would discourse openly and with exceeding sadness. He knew of Bliss’ childhood, of Alfred’s own youth. But never had he discussed Dorothea and Edmund.

Was this a failing of Andre’s, perhaps a mistrust on the Colonel’s part, or perhaps of daughter and son? What, he could not imagine, could they have done to receive such treatment. Aside, naturally, for not comparing to Bliss; a thought that occurred to him though he would not declare it even to himself for it was too callous. It was an uncomfortable notion, that the world revolving around Bliss, as it seemed to be wherever she went, would be to the detriment of others.

How very conflicted his heart was until, with a flash of cream flesh, a cloud-like surge of fine blue poplin and a cry of delight, Bliss was finally upon them, throwing herself into Andre’s arms. He spun her around, laughing, intoxicated just by the feel of holding her again. She looked radiant, of course; the hours she had spent primping and preening in preparation had hardly been necessary as no amount of make-ups, fancy frocks, and jewelry could compare to her innate resplendency.

“I thought maybe you had forgotten me!” she chided playfully, pressing her cheek to his.

“Now, how could I ever forget my Bliss,” he replied with a grin and Dorothea felt almost perversely voyeuristic watching them. She hadn’t neglected to notice that Major Cotard was, in fact, a _very_ attractive man. The threads of silver that were woven through his thick dark hair at his temples, the heat of his gaze emanating from deep brown eyes, his thin nose, the way his mouth had a way of forming the perfect sardonic yet sweet smile. Even the way he spoke, the way he pronounced her sister’s name--something like ‘Bleese’--seemed endearing and seductive as anything she‘d ever heard.

Dorothea sighed, smoothing away a stray lock of hair from her forehead. It would be good to have all the family back at Kingsharrow again and Major Cotard seemed exceedingly pleasant. They seemed so happy together and that was all she could ask for for Bliss. The Colonel dragged her all over this blessed Earth, and to some places that were not, clinging to her, sheltering to the point of obsession and hardly allowing her to have any of the youthful indulgences she was rightly entitled to. Though little good it had done for her or Edmund.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I hope can do with only Rogers as valet,” Edmund told Andre as he led him down the corridor to what would be his bedding rooms. The carpet was thick beneath Cotard’s boots, though worn; he could tell that some time ago it had been vibrant with reds and golds. But now it was fading, giving off a musty ancestral smell. This house, this place, had once been well lived in, well loved. Why did he feel now that was absent? It was almost like a museum of what had been.

The sound of Edmund’s voice, with its ever present sardonic edge, brought him back from his somewhat morbid musings. “We’ve only Rogers and Sanderson, the butler,” he informed him with something of a reluctant sigh. He sounded so alike his sister when he allowed himself to somber his mood. “And of course Mrs. Joyce, the housekeeper, and then there’s Hen, the maid. Bit of friction there, as you can imagine; Joycie likes to think herself tops around here and with a subordinate like Henrietta doubling as lady’s maid, well a higher position. I think you get the general idea of it.”

“It will be agreeable,” replied Andre with an amiable grin. Better to make the best of a complicated situation by putting on a courteous if not affable manner, even if Edmund was goading him with his glib air. The truth of the matter was that he hadn’t had a proper man since he was a young man. There had been Rajii in India but he had been more of a servant of all purposes rather than a genuine valet.

“My dear father likes to at least keep up appearances,” Edmund continued, lighting a cigarillo he had retrieved from a breast pocket. Andre coughed pointedly, waving away the thick, wafting bluish-gray smoke with a brusque stroke of his hand. Edmund ignored him. The Colonel had retained a full staff at his abode in Burundi and yet here at his own home, he could barely afford to keep the four if Edmund was to be believed. It was strange, peeling back the layers of truths he never even knew existed between himself and Moore. His commanding officer wasn’t entirely to blame, to be sure! Many assumptions had been made on Cotard’s part, those first impressions that hadn’t bothered to change. But that was the crux of Alfred’s little deceptions, wasn’t it?

It seemed like ages to Andre before they reached the door to the guest rooms, which Edmund promptly opened, bowing stiffly in mockery of a dutiful attendant as Cotard passed him, strolling inside. “Lounge,” Edmund announced, spreading his arms. He indicated a doorway to his right, “The bedroom and you’ll find a dressing room off of that.” The smoke from his cigarillo shifted with his movements and Andre wished he had put the thing out before they had entered; now the pleasantly modest yet stylish accommodations would stink of the damned object.

“Very comfortable,” commented Andre. “Quite suitable.”

Edmund chuckled dryly. “Not a man of many words, are you?”

Andre grinned almost mischievously. “And what would you like to discuss, monsieur? You will find I have many words when I’ve the mind to speak them. You seemed to be doing perfectly well holding a conversation on your own; I did not know if I should interrupt.”

This elicited a hearty laugh from Edmund; oh, he liked this man. He was uncommon among Bliss’ admirers; this one had wit, a sharp intellect. “Right then,” he nodded his head in sincere reverence. “I see Rogers has brought your baggage in; I suppose it is time for me to take my leave and allow you to prepare for dinner.”

Edmund began to leave and then paused almost too casually, as if he’d just remembered something that hadn’t at all slipped his mind, and turned back to Cotard with a roguish smirk on his face. “Bliss’ room is but four doors down; my room lies between. Just thought you ought to know.” With that, he left, closing the door behind him and whistling an upbeat tune.

Andre supposed that it was a logical arrangement, if the Moores’ unexpected financial state was indeed as severe as it appeared, to inhabit and maintain only one wing of the expansive manse. He would just have to become accustom to this perplexing revelation; that was the only thing for it. No matter, warmth was spreading throughout him at the mere knowledge that Bliss was so close.

Silly, really; he’d many lovers, many a yearning over the years but none made him feel as she did. Love herself had always alluded him and, truth be told, he did have a tendency to evade it with a cunning tenacity; there was a time eluding an angry papa was a way of life for him. But now he believed that providence had interceded in Bliss, showed him that it was time to stop his dalliances. Well, with multiple admirers, at any rate.

Ah, he could remember the feel of her lissome, creamy skin ‘neath his fingertips like silk, always fragranced with an exotic spice. Now that they were returned to Britain, he supposed she would use a more conventional and civilized perfume; a bit of a disappointment but it mattered not. He imagined her blushing, supple lips parting at the brush of his caress, yearning for his kiss. The lips of her mouth. Yes, he was thinking on the lips of her mouth. Ha! Parading downstairs to the dining hall with a magnificent cockstand simply would not do!

He removed his jacket and moved to the wash-hand stand; the water was still hot, provided by Hen merely moments before he had entered. Grasping the washball, he attempted to make himself presentable though he was still riding a bit hard in his breeches.


	2. Chapter 2

Henrietta was a pleasantly handsome woman only a handful of years older than Dorothea, her face round showing her country heritage though her cornflower blue eyes betrayed a spark of incisive intelligence. Her hair was of a honey-wheat color, naturally curling so that it never remained where it was pinned. She seemingly existed to vex Mrs. Joyce, the house keeper, by being both below her as a maid of all purpose and above her as the girls’ lady’s maid, which suited her just fine.  
  
The Moores were a fine enough family to work for, the only family she’d ever really known in a way. She was born into this life and had taken the posting in her early teens; it was a move she had never regretted. And she was good at it: discreet when the situation required, outgoing when occasion called for it. With Edmund...well, discretion was best there but, frequent whilst chitchatting with the Moore sisters, the latter was most appropriate. Hear without listening, that was a good servant’s maxim.  
  
“Or so he told Sanderson,” she gossiped as she stroked Bliss’ dense tresses. “I think it got right up his nose but Rogers wasn’t saying a word!” The brush snagged on another of the young woman’s tightly waved locks and Hen had to bite her tongue in order to prevent uttering a curse. The girl herself was sitting before the mirror in her dressing chamber, rearranging the objects that lay on the smooth white surface of the table in front of her, distractedly oblivious to her attendant’s struggles though smiling at her anecdote.  
  
“You’ll be knots all over,” Dorothea tutted, ceasing the task of unpacking and putting her fists to her hips as she stood. “Let me,” she asked of Hen, who placed the brush in Dorothea’s outstretched hand. “If you could see to Miss Bliss’ belongings, I’ll finish here.”  
  
“Yes, mum,” Hen replied evenly. It had not been an order but a request and she valued that. As every good servant had a gift for, she disappeared into the background like a shadow. Silently, she rummaged through the trunks and garment baggage, safely putting the objects in their proper place.  
  
It had been a little over two years since Dorothea had last seen her sister, though she had received a letter, garbled with a mess of cross writing, with almost every post. She’d grown from the sweet child she had been to the blossoming woman she was now, but that was to be expected; Dorothea was sure she had aged quite a bit herself in Bliss’ eyes, though she had declared that her elder sibling looked ‘more beautiful than ever!’ She seriously doubted it but was grateful for the sentiment nonetheless.  
  
Dorothea pulled Bliss’ hair back into a silk ribbon and kissed her on the top of her head. “There, see, all better,” she grinned. Bliss looked as luminous as ever, even in her chemise and dressing gown. She was still, in Dorothea’s mind and heart, the small girl that looked so adoringly up to her big sister, so eager to please. Always so eager to please, what a terrible thing to imbue into a child. The feeling that she needed to gratify to be loved. “What a mess you must have been without your Dorothea; all tangles and crooked buttons, I should expect!”  
  
“I missed you,” Bliss said with such sincere innocence that it almost broke Dorothea’s heart. “Whenever anything at all happened, my first impulse was to run and tell you of it, especially when I...Oh, Dodie, what do you think of Andre? Isn’t he magnificent?!”  
  
“He is indeed,” replied Dorothea with a bit of a teasing smile. “And he was the first time you asked me at dinner and remained so when you inquired so again at supper.” Undeniably, he had shown the utmost courtesy and consideration during their two meals; he did tell the most amusing stories though she felt he was holding back for the sake of polite company. She would have liked to have heard some of the more...colorful tales she was sure he knew. He was ever so charming, she thought distractedly; she unquestionably understood what Bliss had seen in him after shunning so many a suitor.  
  
Hen gasped quietly as she opened a well traveled chest, throwing back the lid only to be confronted with a seeming rainbow of fabric, charms and ornaments. “Mum,” she said, standing, considerably taken aback with awe, “What would you like me to do with...erm, these?”  
  
Bliss turned her head and instantly a broad grin spread across her refined features. “Oh, you’ve found the gifts! How wonderful! Lay them out on the divan, will you, Hen?” The maid nodded and began to unfurl the treasures hidden within the weathered trunk. Bliss let out a giddy squeak and, taking her sister’s hand, led Dorothea to the settee beside the hearth. “Oh, you’ll simply love them, Dodie, wait and see! Everything is so...so vibrant, so alive on the continent! It reminded me so of you!”  
  
“Oh, Sissy, you didn’t,” Dorothea sighed, looking warily upon the bright materials and trinkets. Gingerly, she lifted a gauzy garment and slipped it across her fingers; it felt wonderful, stimulating not just her sense of touch. It was sensual, provocatively dazzling in its gaudy crimson hue. She passed it under her nose on a whim and thrilled to the scent of foreign spice. She flushed the color of the fabric when she realized it reminded her of Major Cotard, wondering if he smelled as exotic and enticing as the silks in her hand.  
  
Well, she considered as she handled the diaphanous fabrics, the bustiers and jeweled veils, it could be worse: they did seem to be under things and she therefore would not bring upon herself the embarrassment of the stares and critical gazes of others. Unconsciously, she had crossed her arms across her awkwardly round bosom.  
  
“No, not like that, Dodie,” Bliss corrected her, shaking her head in amusement as her sister struggled with a sheer sash. “The blouse goes on first, and the skirt wraps about the hips,” she placed her hands upon Dorothea’s slim waist and turned her around, enveloping her in the rich but sheer material. “And it drapes across your shoulder and I have the bracelets to match somewhere in here,” she bit her lip as she began to rummage through the heap. “It’s a frock, a few of them actually; you can combine and blend the different colors.”  
  
“A frock? Th-they wore these on the outside?” Dorothea’s throat went dry imagining herself boldly prancing about in the scant costume, seductive, sumptuously brash as the eyes of the handsome gents swept over her appreciatively like a burning breeze. Would Major Cotard look? Damn her, why could she not stop thinking of him? What was she thinking? They’d laugh and that was worse than never even noticing at all. She mustered a smile for her sister, though it seemed a fragile thing, a thread about to snap. “They’re wonderful,” she assured Bliss and the younger woman grinned with joy, taking Dorothea’s hand and bouncing with delight.  
  
“I simply knew you would love them!” Bliss declared. “Mind you, they are for special occasions; the Punjabi women wore them at dance. I wish you could see them, the way they moved!” She tried to imitate it and, at least to Dorothea‘s untrained eye, seemed to move flawlessly, gracefully. “Well, I’m no good at it but it was a sight to behold! And these will show off your figure so well, Dodie; you needn’t hide it underneath all of those damnably drab dresses!”  
  
“I take it Sanjay had a hand in helping you to acquire such things and don’t you dare begin to deny it!” Dorothea warned as Bliss opened her mouth to speak, frowning slightly. The latter had a guilty look to her pretty features, a sweet little pout to her perfect mouth as if having been caught with her hand in a box of forbidden sweets. Ah, so she was correct and the Punjabi man had been with them in Burundi. How advantageous the situation with Sanjay was in keeping up the appearance of affluence the Colonel was so very concerned with: he worked happily as a servant without desire for recompense. Not the monetary kind, leastways. As long as there was no untoward talk, there was only benefit to be reaped. From the Colonel’s perspective, at any rate. Things were always so bloody simple to the simple-minded.  
  
“He came with us, you know,” Bliss said quietly, carefully folding a flowing, gold-lined swathe of long, rectangular cloth. “Sanjay, I mean, he’s with father in Edinburgh. All of father’s business associates consider him to be so exotic. He even puts on an accent and talks like this,” she imitated the clichéd Indian intonation. “‘Would you be wanting more of the scotch, sir.’ That sort of thing.” She chuckled to herself, a loud sort of thing in the growing silence. Swiftly, she felt the awkwardness growing and meant to change the subject when she observed, “You do not wear your band anymore,” she observed, taking Dorothea’s left hand and running her delicate touch over her ring finger.  
  
Dodie’s sigh was arduous, almost burdened. “I stopped bearing it some months ago,” she explained. “It’s been a long time, Sissy. It was beginning to feel...heavy.”  
  
“But I’ve troubled you now and I wanted only to bring you gladness,” Bliss smiled softly, giving her sister’s hand a tender squeeze. Situations had a tendency to get so stupidly, stupidly complicated, Dorothea thought with a regretfully wistful exhale.  
  
Hen’s tasks completed, she was excused for the night as Dodie tucked her younger sister into bed, lying on the mattress beside her. “I do like him, Major Cotard,” she told her, laying her hand on the pillow alongside Bliss’ exquisite face, pale and smooth like milk. “He’s so very...”  
  
“Polite? Refined?” Bliss suggested. “Romantic? Stunningly gorgeous?”  
  
“I was going to say French, but I suppose the others would apply as well,” teased Dorothea. “I was worried,” she admitted, “that you might...make a mistake. As I did. But Major Cotard, it is unmistakable that he truly cares for you and that is the most important matter to me. And he is very attractive.” Yes, Dorothea could see it plainly that they were in love, though it may not have been the sort that shook kingdoms to the ground and brought the heavens to their knees, he clearly *cared* greatly for her. Dodie had been in love with Christopher Martin Grieve, so dashing in his uniform reds and so cavalier where matters of the heart were concerned. But that was in the past now and Major Cotard, with his arrogant yet convivial deportment, had proven he was a more than welcome addition to the future.  
  
“It’s important to me that you be fond of him,” grinned Bliss. “I don’t expect you to take to him as I did, not right away, naturally. But, Dodie, I think you will come to love him as I do.”  
  
“Sissy?” Dorothea said mischievously, propping herself up upon her elbow as her dark auburn hair tumbled down about her shoulders and a wicked smirk played across her thin mouth. “Is it true what they say? About the French being...brilliant lovers?” How the notion sent a thrill down her, straight into her belly and below. The heat of those sensuously haughty lips against her skin brought out goose flesh, his long fingers teasing the ties of her wrap before slipping inside to caress her bare body, between her thighs. Good Gawd but she was getting wet there! Those eyes, those damnably sinful eyes, would watch her as she...Oh dear.  
  
Bliss beamed impishly. “Would I settle for anything less?” They broke into a fit of giggles until Dorothea snatched up a pillow and playfully threw it at her sister and the down began to fly.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
“Psst,” Rogers called to Hen through his teeth, gently closing the door to Edmund’s chambers behind him. He held up a bottle, the kind of quality tipple the servants usually only got close to when polishing the decanters the amber liquid sat in, and waggled it enticingly. “Fancy a late night?”  
  
Hen raised an eyebrow. “He won’t miss it?”  
  
Rogers scoffed. “Probably think he downed it, if he even remembers it was there to begin with on the morrow.”  
  
“An the old man?”  
  
“Sanderson’s too engaged worrying himself to the bone over keeping up our little façade of prosperity for the good Major Cotard to bother with us,” replied Rogers, putting his hand on Hen’s back and steering her towards the servants’ stair. “Same with Joycie. What do you say then?”  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The lamps were burning low as Dorothea quietly padded bare footed across the well shabby carpet, blowing Bliss a kiss goodnight as she carefully shut the door behind her. She turned and barely had time to suppress a cry of surprise when she very nearly ran straight into Major Cotard. A searing blush broke out across her cheeks and nose, fully aware of where his destination lay.  
  
“Erm, excuse me,” Dodie stumbled over her words, making herself as small as possible, backing up against the wall.  
  
“No, excuse me,” the Major laughed as if he were trying to give himself more time in which to think of an justification for his presence. “I was just on my way to...I was looking for…”  
  
“No! No, it’s no problem,” Dorothea reassured him. “I just...” she glanced back at Bliss’ chambers, “I...Oh God, I’m not here.” Taking a deep breath, she managed a smile as she moved around him, brushing inadvertently against him. Andre couldn’t help but notice that she was warm like the softest of wool blankets and fragranced of lilacs. His skin was alive where they had touched, like it had been kissed by lightning and he watched her go, quickening her step with his stare at her back. Trying to shake the unexpected jolt he had just received, he placed his hand upon the brass handle on Bliss’ bedchamber door and grinned lasciviously as it clicked open without resistance.


	3. Chapter 3

“What do you reckon, then?” Hen asked, the glow from the end of her smoldering cigarillo burning brightly in the gloom of the lower kitchens. She blew the wafting smoke from her mouth with a hearty exhalation and took a sip of brandy from the squat, inelegant tumbler in her hand. “About the Froggy, I mean. Seems an all right sort of chap.”

She handed Rogers the cigarillo and he took a long, leisurely drag of tobacco. “You didn’t have to help undress the dandy,” he observed wryly.

Hen grinned, raising an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t have minded,” she chuckled huskily. “He’s something to look at, that one! Lawd, but he is magnificent, have to give him that. Real particular, is he? What, wanted you to fold his underclothes or something? Naw, doesn’t seem the type. Likes the ladies, that ones does; maybe too much.”

“He’s just so very...French,” Rogers told her for lack of a better word. “Used to getting his own way, I imagine, though certainly not the worst I’ve had.” Hen laughed cunningly and shot him a wily look; he ignored her. “He talks to me directly, I like that, though he does have a tendency of issuing commands instead of making requests.”

“Well la-dee-da,” scoffed Hen, the combination of smoke and brandy making her lowered voice gruff. “They have to request now, do they? Forgot to tell me. What about Miss Bliss, eh? She chose rightly, I reckon; couldn’t ‘ave been easy with the old monster breathing down her neck. Decent sort, I’m guessing, if even you can’t dig up anything to blather about the man. The missus seems fond enough of him; more than, even, if you were to ask me but, then again, I’m not the scandalmonger among us,” she shot Rogers a pointed glare. “Am I.”

“Mistress Dorothea fancies the Frog?” he cocked an eyebrow. “Suppose it would do her some good to brush the cobwebs away but a bit of bad sport if it’s with her sister’s affianced.”

“You shouldn’t tease about her, Tom,” Hen scowled sternly, her glass clinking loudly against the bare wood table top in protest. “She’s had a tough time of it, she deserves a chance at happiness. *Real* happiness.” She realized the wetness on her cheeks were the tracks of her own tears and pushed the brandy away from herself, deeming that she had imbibed way too much.

“So do we all, Hen,” he replied somberly, tapping his fingers against his think lips. He ground the cigarillo out against the inside of his now empty glass and took her hand. “So do we all. And if Miss Bliss can find it, so let her do.”

Hen snickered, not just a little intoxicated. “Listen to me, squawking away when we should be toasting Miss Bliss! You know,” she observed, downing the remainder of her brandy in one swig and slapping the table with her palm, “I think we might be just a tad pissed!” They both laughed until neither could draw a steady breath.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Andre sighed contentedly, gazing at the vivid, pale moonlight pouring from the open drapes, spilling onto the threadbare rugs and hardwood floors. Its gauzy fingers stretched across the chamber to touch the very edge of the bed, bathing it in its almost ethereal beams from its pregnant face. The lanterns had all gone out and the embers of the hearth fire now simmered with a dwindling intensity; all that shone now was pallid rays of the night sky. Bliss shifted her head, her cheek brushing his shoulder as she arched her neck to look into his face. “The stars were brighter in Bombay,” she murmured, her small, warm sigh caressing his neck. “But the moon...but the moon...I used to think the moon over Kingsharrow was made of ice.”

The quiet is what staggered Andre; he had forgotten the silence that could envelop the British countryside on these still spring nights, when winter’s chill had yet to be banished and summer’s sweet breath was hitherto withheld. The estate’s hounds would bray every now and again, roused from their sleep by some restless nocturnal noise or another and enticed to sound by the moon’s fullness. But otherwise, only calm.

The feel of her soft flesh, her passionate body, in his embrace again was next to sheer bliss--if he could be so cheeky as to use such a pun--but he found his mind otherwise occupied by questions that begged answers. And it always came back to Dorothea. Well, Edmund; Edmund and Dorothea, but mostly Dorothea. How could two women such as the Moore sisters be so alike and yet so different, contradictory yet complimentary at the same time?

Why had he not been told of her? And Edmund. It seemed rather a cruel carelessness on Bliss’ part, especially in light of the caring he had witnessed between the two gentlewomen. Was it truly possible she had merely forgotten to mention her? And Edmund. Or was there, as he suspected, a bit of insecurity when it came to Dorothea, as if Bliss admired her sibling’s reliability, her composure, to the point of envy. Andre was a more mature man, well, in years if not exactly always in practice, if he was being candid. Did Bliss actually feel threatened by Dorothea’s...ripeness? Yes, ripeness would be the correct word to use, in every sense for, as her self-possession betrayed underlying wisdom, her body, though not as firm and developed as her sister’s in some places, was bursting like an over seasoned fruit, erupting with juice.

And, of course, there was Edmund.

The Major’s stay at Kingsharrow had begun to make him devastatingly aware of the Colonel’s need to maintain appearances; that, at least, explained if not excused his behavior. It still felt like a aggravated treason to Andre that Alfred had never so much as mentioned his other children when Cotard had fancied himself the man’s confidant. More over, it was a betrayal to his kin themselves to treat them in such a manner. Perhaps it was his Gaul’s pride in lineage, but Andre had a keen sense of family value as well as an emergent fondness for both Dorothea and Edmund. In a strange way, they made Bliss seem more...whole, if that made any sense at all it was as if he were taking a step back for the first time and seeing the entire landscape.

He loved Bliss, of that he was sure; she was the only woman who had ever inspired the desire for monogamy in him. Not that he hadn’t loved before, it had just been...different. He had been younger, more...blithe; his paramours had ranged from the experienced older widows and neglected military wives to the virtuous daughters and sisters of his fellow officers. He’d developed something of a reputation but what those gossips didn’t comprehend was that he truly adored the company of women and wished only to give those sad souls a feeling of contentment in their trapped lives. If he was more reserved in his adulation of his engaged, did that not prove his sincerity? His solemnity?

He tightened his arm around her as she gazed up at him in the darkness, her eyes shimmering, her lips full and rosy. Oh, he did love her and there he lay with his sweet Bliss in his possessive but tender grip and all he could think of was Dorothea! And Edmund.

“Maybe,” he whispered in the dimness that wrapped them together in solitude and intimacy, trying to forget his complex line of contemplation, “the moon is a jewel that I will place upon your finger. Would you like that, ma chere?”

“What would you do?” she laughed. “Climb the clouds?”

“One by one,” he pledged, grinning. He bowed his head and kissed her lush mouth, lightly at first and then with a growing hunger. She responded to the sensual caress almost instantaneously, her curved, plush body surging against his like a rolling wave. A soft whimper escaped her lips and he sipped of it greedily, turning her gently over onto her back as he rolled atop her. His tongue plunged forward, tasting her avidly, dancing with her own. His cock was as hard steel, weighted like a pendulum between his thighs but for the tight encasement of his breeches. His groan as she touched him there through his clothing was guttural, almost savage.

Only the gossamer threads of her nightdress lay between his heated grasp and the sumptuous delights of her body. His hand, his long, strong fingers, clutched the inviting swell of her breast, kneading the abundant suppleness of her flesh. The blushing peak stiffened as the ball of his thumb encircled it, stroking it. Lowering his mouth, he drew it betwixt his lips, wetting the fabric to transparency with his saliva as he suckled her fiercely. She cried out, arching her back as he savored her excited femininity; the instinctive action lifted her bottom off the mattress just long enough for Andre’s covetous hands to gather her muslin chemise at her waist.

Her creamy, fulsome thighs fell apart of their own accord as he brought his mouth lower still. The heady perfume of her womanly bloom, its petals dewy with its silken nectar, made his head spin. He parted the soft brush of auburn hair and drove his lips and tongue into the heart of her, devouring her ravenously. Her shouts of thrilling elation only fed his craving as he supped on rush after delicious rush of the hot release flooding from her in a carnal deluge. From stem to stern, he lapped at her slippery skin, rousing and stimulating the nubbin hidden within the slick folds with precise flicks of the tip of his tongue. At length, he converged on the bud, revolving around it with firm sweeps of his probing organ.

Her hips were rocking to his fiendish motions as she gasped, thrashing her burning cheek against the pillow as she bit into her bottom lip. Torturously, he abruptly ceased his sinful ministrations as she teetered on the threshold of ecstasy. She groaned, wordlessly pleading with him to finish this wonderful torment he’d begun as she ardently threw her arms around his neck when the length of his muscular physique once again covered hers.

Her hands pulled at the hem of his loose shirt, bringing it up over his brawny hips and backside, as his fingers worked expertly the fastenings of his trousers. She felt the powerful sinew of his thighs, the dark, crisp hair there, bared to her touch as he skillfully shed the material in one or two swift movements. He was between her legs in an instant, his thickened, throbbing column of flesh gliding into her with only the smallest amount of resistance plunging into her snug depths. Ah, the agony was exquisite as he pushed until he was fully encased in her velvet warmth, the bulging crown of his eagerly amorous shaft nestled hungrily inside her belly.

His penetrations were long, hard as his hips bucked brutally in his passion. He lost himself in the sensation of her tight sheath, the moans that flew from her lips like prayers to his ears. He embraced her as he rocked her deeply, kissing her hair and murmuring pledges, tender vows of love and devotion as well as intense sexual satisfaction. He said things, sinful, lustful things of how he felt, what he wanted to do to her; a constant stream of licentious scenarios came from his wanton mouth.

Her unrestrained screams of rapture and abandon overwhelmed his awareness as his own climax slammed his pleasantly aching muscles and his seed poured forth from his loins, pumping into her womb as his voice rumbled boisterously in his chest. Panting and utterly spent, he lay against her, running his fingers through her damp tresses as she floated down from heaven to rest in his arms.

He kissed her fervently only to open his eyes and see Dorothea’s face in the darkness beneath him, her features lost in the throes of gratification. He awoke with a gasp to find the sun’s buttery rays creeping fondly along the bedroom floor where once her sister moon’s rays had been.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Ah! Oh God!” Dorothea wept in her sleep, consumed in a frenzy of satisfaction, her own hand unconsciously moving between her thighs as she saw Andre’s face looming above her. The heels of her feet dug into the sheets and her hair whipped against the pillows. “Ah, AH!” She bolted suddenly upright, throwing her bedcovers nearly to her ankles as she wakened from her most glorious dream, breathless. “Ah,” she groaned one last time as she pushed her hair from her face; her skin burned in the cooler air of her chamber.

“Are you well, missus?” Hen asked and Dorothea was horrified to realize, coming out of the haze of her delectable fantasy that the maid was standing at the edge of her bed.

'Good God, how long had she been there, watching?'

“Have you had a nightmare? You’re all flushed; fever can bring on bad dreams. Shall I get a tonic from Mrs. Joyce, mum?”

“No, Hen,” she said quickly, trying to calm her heaving bosom, the trembling of her hands and voice. “No, I’m fine, really. Is breakfast prepared?”

“Yes, mum,” Hen answered, still rather slyly concerned. You know, Dorothea suspected that Hen might not believe it was a fever at all! “About an hour ago. You’ve slept late this morning. We’ve kept it warm.”

“Balls!” swore Dorothea, sidling off the mattress. “Hen,” she said, suddenly anxious as the maid pulled a drab, dated old dress from the clothes press; typical forenoon attire for her mistress in normal circumstances. “Is Major Cotard there?”

“Yes, mum; last I saw, leastways,” Hen paused, eyeing her mistress with a furtive smirk. She may have been a bit hung over but even her red-rimmed eyes could see what was passing through the missus’ mind. “If I may say, mum, he is looking fine this day.”

“Yes, yes, good,” said Dorothea as if she weren’t really paying that much attention to her maid’s words. “Hen, I’ll be wearing the white frock today, the one with the lavender flowers.” The new one, the flattering one that just happened to be made out of diaphanous muslin, that accentuated her shape and stature. The one that made her look utterly stunning, in Hen’s opinion.

“Yes, mum.” This time, Hen could barely hide her impish grin.


	4. Chapter 4

“Do not,” Dorothea warned, jabbing a cautioning finger the air between herself and Edmund with an erect finger, “even. Not a word.” The two were standing in the sun dappled hallway just in front of the breakfast room, which had received a fresh dusting just yesterday in an attempt to wipe away the years of disuse; the quiet first floor parlor had always seemed just as good a place to brunch, especially as the room was already in regular use and required no extra care.

Edmund had excused himself from the gathering inside to have a smoke--and perhaps have a bit of a nip from his flask--while Dodie had just descended the stair. Resplendent in her white muslin frock with lavender flowers and neatly plaited hair--which had taken a bloody horse’s life for Hen to set, what with her hair being roughly the consistency of hay--gathered with ribbons that matched the soft purple of her dress’ pattern, she seemed changeable of mood despite her awkwardly elegant appearance.

Fussing with the unusually low neckline of her gown, Dorothea crept towards the partially ajar breakfast room entrance, peering in through the gap between jamb and door while Edmund looked on with a bemused smirk dancing upon his thin lipped mouth and freckled brow. “What _**are**_ you playing at, Dodie?”

She shushed him tersely as she craned her neck, trying to get a better view; she could only see the very edge of the oval table and a few empty chairs, as well as the bright daylight that radiated in through the picture window that faced the wooded rivulet that ran through the property. Dodie could just picture the leisurely flowing waters of Fulloch Creek glimmering in the morning’s golden rays, catching in the Major’s chestnut locks, the silver at his temples. “Is Major Cotard in there,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath in the peaceful corridor.

Edmund joined her at the door, leaning in close as he tried to catch a glimpse at what she was looking at. “Yes, he is,” he replied in a gleefully conspiratorial tone, matching her low undertone. “Dodie, why are we whispering?”

As if in answer to Dorothea’s question, Bliss’ bubbly laughter was suddenly carried on the light air, corresponding with a deep voice murmuring French. Dodie blushed, imagining what we would be saying to her sister and, worse, secretly wishing her was saying it to her; she backed away, pushing her shoulders and rear up against the wall opposite.

“What on earth are you about, Dodie?” Edmund laughed. “Is it that Froggy? You seemed on amicable enough terms last night, where comes this sudden dislike?”

“*Dislike* Major Cotard?” scoffed Dorothea derisively. “No, no, that is not the trouble. Am I losing my mind, Ed?”

“I’m beginning to wonder,” he chuckled, mystified. “Dodie, darling, breathe! You’re all flushed,” he took her hand between his tow and kissed it, surprised at the slight tremble he felt.

“He spent the night with her,” she told him flatly in a low voice, her cheeks burning scarlet. “I-I nearly collided with him right in front of Bliss’ chamber door.”

“Good God, is that all that’s bothering you?” snickered Edmund jovially. “That Bliss and the Frenchie are lovers? Lord only knows it wouldn’t be the first time she’s taken a man to her bed; you said it yourself, that she deserves a bit of fun. If it is with a chap she happens to be betrothed to, all the better, no? You are being so queer, I swear it! Come on, some food will do you good, granted, not as good as a f---”

He took her arm but she slapped his gentle touch away. “Do you have to be so vulgar?” she interrupted, scowling even more severely when he laughed at her. Her expression softened and she gave ground by giggle along with him, smiling as she placed her hand on his jaw and kissed his cheek. “Don’t you ever change,” she wrinkled her nose affectionately, getting the distinct feeling that he might have been teasing her as she suspected Hen had been.

“Vulgar, me?!” he scoffed good-humouredly, as if it were the most ludicrous idea in the world. “The very thought! It’s not as if I, say, keep a dog-eared copy of ‘Fanny Hill’ ‘neath my pillow...”

She gasped exaggeratedly, feigning offense. “I’ve not done that in years! Moreover, you’re not supposed to know about it!” She punched him gently in the shoulder with the heel of her fist as he laughed. “Ed,” she ventured as she straightened his cravat and smoothed down the lapels of his coat, “if I’m so incredibly pleased for Sissy, why am I not, you know, happier?”

“Oh, Dode,” he sighed sadly. “I know that it has been difficult...”

“Do not, please,” she pleaded forlornly, placing her fingers on his lips. “This is not about Christopher Martin,”--he cleared his throat loudly; it had been the first time she had said his name aloud in quite some time, even longer since she had called him anything save Captain Grieve--“this is not about me. She doesn’t deserve him,” she blurted out, covering her mouth in horror at the sentiment she had just voiced. “It’s just that there will be so many demands on her,” she tried to justify her statement, “as wife to a colonel in such a position. And I don’t even know him; I just must sound like the most embittered old hag. She doesn’t love him, Ed.”

“I know, Dodie,” he nodded. He kissed the tip of her nose and took her arm. “Chin, chin, the happy couple awaits.” A casual push from his palm opened the breakfast room door enough for them to cross the threshold.

Andre stood politely as Dorothea entered followed by Edmund, taking a deep breath as his gaze keenly drank in the pleasing view of her stylishly draped curves and angles. They were bigger than her remembered--Dorothea’s eyes, that was. To Cotard, rising when a beautiful woman entered a room and offering her a chair was as natural as putting one foot before the other while walking and he did just that for Dodie. He had not taken into consideration the instinctive reaction his admittedly occasionally wayward loins would have seeing the figure from his delectable dream and he found that his legs were almost stumbling over his erection, his breeches tightening uncomfortably about his crotch and thighs.

Making it back to his own chair, he sighed in relief as his little indiscretion seemingly going unnoticed. Dorothea was busy bidding her sister good morning while Edmund, who had just been preoccupied grinding his cigarillo out in the soil of a potted plant near the window, placed a glass of juice spiked with something extremely potent smelling next to the Major’s plate, patting him on the back and grinning like an idiot as he told him, “Cheers, mate!”

In the broad light of day, Andre found that his attention was not nearly as distracted as it had been when fantasy and curiosity were permitted to take dominion. His arrival yesterday must have unnerved him so to have had such an effect on him though, now, looking upon Dorothea, he couldn’t conceive of how his imagination had had taken such a flight of fancy. As per his first impression, she was an attractive woman, yes, her family resemblance striking. But it was his Bliss who tugged a smile from his mouth, as well as other bodily reactions--Christ, did he have to put reins on the thing to control it?!--when she wiggled her nose affectionately across the table at him.

“Andre was just telling me of Venice,” Bliss babbled excitedly. “What a shame it is that we cannot honeymoon there for Boney‘s occupation! I wanted to visit when father and I were passing through Rome all those years ago but he didn’t see the point in delaying our journey further as we were in hostile territory. I’m sure it would be exquisite! It is a city for lovers, after all.” She blushed as Andre cast her a warm smile.

“Have you ever seen the city?” Cotard politely inquired of Dorothea. Always so courteous, always the gentleman, she thought, unable to meet his eyes. Why was his graciousness so much more challenging than if he behaved as most of Bliss’ suitors did and ignored her. Well, she wasn’t going to let this silly whim of hers get in the way of pleasant conversation with an admittedly divinely charming man.

“No,” replied Dorothea demurely, “I don’t travel much, or rather haven’t since I was young and we did not visit then. But Venice, I‘ve heard much about it. I’ve read that the museums are fabulous and the city itself, it’s like a work of art, is it not? No wonder Bonaparte was so keen on it.”

“During the flooding season,” Andre continued, happy to have found a pleasant, neutral subject on which to share, “one must take one’s shoes and stockings off in order to avoid the water, even in the citadel’s most crowded plazas. It is gradually sinking, you see, as it was built directly atop the water. Why you could just be walking along and see a lady with the hems of her skirts tucked into her garters for wading through the streets.” Bliss exchanged a scandalously amused look with her sister as she giggled coyly into her napkin. Now here was a hint of that exciting deviousness she knew he was capable of and could only wonder at what wickedness the rest of the story could tell.

Edmund caught Dorothea’s eye, making her scowl at him as he mouthed the word ‘vulgar’ with a mischievous grin. She was enjoying Major Cotard’s anecdote, even though she knew it was nothing more than sociable prattle.

“I think we’re boring Edmund with our mundane chitchat,” she said quite sharply. “Perhaps his life his far too thrilling for the likes of us.”

“On the contrary, sister,” he laughed dryly, “I find this all rather...stimulating, don’t you?” He jolted slightly as Dorothea’s foot found his under the table and her heel came down upon his toes hard, trying to mask his grimace and giving only a faint grunt of pain. Dorothea smiled at him sweetly and he bit back a curse; she was a saucy devil hidden behind those large eyes and innocent little mouth. One day, a man was going to stick his hand right into her simmering fire only to find a keg of gunpowder there and nearly get his fingers blown off. And things were definitely heating up. How interesting. “What a terrible disgrace that all of this is indeed just talk, what with Venice belonging to Boney.”

“Undeniably,” Cotard answered with a sigh. “And one must shudder to think at what will happen to all of that artwork in the tyrant’s despotic grasp. The Venetians would not be defeated so easily though; they fought Bonaparte’s seize fiercely. But, in the end...” he shrugged, not bothering to complete the disheartening thought.

“But they were a Republic once,” Dorothea stated hopefully. “One of the most remarkable in history; they will be again, I’ve no doubt! And surely some decent things can come out of the unpleasant: I have heard that the Jews in fact have more freedom now...”

“All under the thumb of a despot,” interposed Andre pointedly.

“There was no harm intended in my comments,” Dorothea replied fairly. “I’ve no doubt in the good men of His Majesty’s Army and Navy,” she smiled at her brother and then at Cotard, “they will depose Bonaparte, of that I am most sure. The Venetians’ democracy was a remarkable thing, part of the gentle artistry that we spoke of, that permeates the city. My point was simply that, with all due respect to your situation, Major, that Venice can return to its former glory and that Republics are not always dangerous or unwanted occurrences.”

“With all due respect,” countered Andre, “I know quite a few who would argue otherwise. Or, more to the point, quite a few innocents who can no longer argue for they’ve no head upon their shoulders with which to do so.”

“I do not refute there has been violence. Tell me, how many innocent Republicans have been executed by the Loyalists? And, before that, how many peasants expired under the carelessness of their superiors? How many in the Irish rebellion, those who are now denied the right to speak in their own tongue?” The tension in the room felt like a corporeal thing now, the terse silence broken only by an occasional uncomfortable clearing of the throat.

“Well, there you go, Major,” Edmund chuckled. “Treason before teatime. Welcome to the Moore household.”

“Don’t be glib, Edmund,” Dorothea clucked her tongue but his leg was too fast for her and he moved his foot before her own could come down upon it again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Psst,” Rogers whispered through the open breakfast room door, snapping his fingers as he tried to catch Hen’s attention without bringing undo notice upon himself. She stood silently by the end board, the remnants of the forenoon meal gradually cooling from tepid to cold as she waited to take the dishes away. She was listening intently to the Major’s romantic account of his last trip to Venice, dreaming of being far away from dreary old Kingsharrow, or Wormwood, as the servants called it, when she was jolted out of her daydream by the disagreement that had ensued and became aware of Rogers’ urging.

“Enjoying themselves, are they?” he inquired in a hushed tone, nudging his head in the direction of the busy table.

“Some more than others,” she smiled crookedly.

“Yeah, well, not for long,” Rogers informed her grimly. “Word from Sanderson: the old monster’s on his way here now. Joycie is to prepare his chambers immediately. Pass the news on.”

“Oi!” she objected. “Why do I have to be the bearer of bad news?”

“Sorry, Hennie,” he clicked his tongue in mock regret. “Henderson’s on the rampage overseeing the entire thing as if it’s a military operation, Joycie’s changing the linens and I’m to ready the stables for the coach. Good luck, though.” He winked and disappeared.

Hen moved subtlety but briskly across the room, positioning herself behind Edmund, waiting for a lull in the conversation, which the young master seemed to be only partly involved in, still dour over his smarting foot. Her chance came and she stepped in, interjecting, “Sir, excuse me for a moment...” She leaned forward and whispered the unpleasant information into his ear. His stance changed immediately, becoming rigid and flatly formal.

“Thank you, Hen,” he told her dully. He didn’t even need to dismiss her, she bowed and left quickly, knowing when to execute a tactical retreat like a professional. Not before she discreetly rested a hand on his arm, feeling to her delight, his muscles relax ever so slightly. “Father is on his way as we speak,” he announced. “He should arrive shortly.”

“Why does the old bastard always have to ruin every occasion?” hissed Dorothea ruefully to her brother. “Go on,” she told Bliss, giving her younger sister’s hand a fond squeeze, “the two of you take respite down by Fulloch; it’s so lovely down by the creek and you and Monsieur Cotard can be alone for a little while longer. Get thee peace and quiet whilst still you can, now that‘s an order!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Be careful just here,” Bliss called out a warning, brushing aside the ribbon of her bonnet, flowing freely in the gusty noonday air, as she gazed down the steep slope to the rushing brook below. “There’s a bit of a precipitous incline, it gets rather treacherous when it’s muddy. And it’s almost always muddy,” she grinned. The soft grasses ended abruptly beneath her delicate boots and dropped off suddenly into a sheer wall of dirt and roots until it at last met the babbling waters of the Fulloch. Cotard tenderly but firmly, protectively, grasped her arm as he joined her, smiling into her eyes. “Come on, there’s a lovely spot ahead.”

The land fell gracefully down into a even plane, a lovely sort of moor dotted with wildflowers and thick patches of heather as they followed the creek. The sun was bright but dulled in comparison to the beams of Bliss’ smile. What a lovely and mysterious creature she was and, not for the first time, he wondered if he truly understood enough about her, fully grasped all her secret places--so to speak!--to make her happy.

Oh, his ego was healthy enough to know that he was charming, demonstrative, a fantastic lover if he did say so himself--he certainly enjoyed himself--but there always seemed like there was some ghost of her spirit that he could never quite get within his reach. She hadn’t been a virgin when he had first lain with her and the decision had not been made lightly on either of their parts; he had never asked more than was necessary as she was diplomatic enough to show him the same consideration. Even with his admittedly high opinion of himself, he had to question why it had been him, out of all of her admirers.

He had speculated more than once that his close relationship to her father had certainly not hindered the situation. But that was another part of her, another phantom of her spirit, the one that was so eager to please and entertain, so naturally charismatic and engaging. He had to confess that sometimes the many facades became...wearisome. So many pretenses, he was learning. Peace and quiet while they still could find a spot, that’s what Dorothea had said upon hearing of her father’s imminent arrival; he had begun to wonder just how much about the Colonel he truly knew and what was just posturing.

“Why did you not tell me of your family?” he ventured as they finally came to rest along the serene bank. Coy deceptions had always been a playful part of his amorous dealings; that was in his youth and he wanted this to be different. He wanted honesty, forthrightness between him and the woman who was to be his wife; an openness previously lacking in what had been little more than an amusement for him.

“You’ve never told me of yours,” she countered evenly and amiably, flashing the pearl whiteness of her teeth in a dainty grin. “Honestly, Andre, it wasn’t deliberate; we just never came ‘round to speaking of it, did we? Dorothea, Dorothea is fantastic, as you’ve seen. She’s so sweet, if a bit dogmatic,” she giggled. “I know she might have antagonized you a bit at breakfast but she’s so...giving. Always. She was young when our mother died but she’s always looked out for me. I wish you could see that side of her. And Edmund is, well, he’s just Edmund. I love him despite!” she laughed brightly.

“I have a sister,” he informed her. “Jeanette. She is so alike our mother. She married last year, well, I would say but...She had a loss when we were young, when we lived in Brest. Her beau, he was involved in a riot in Paris, killed by the mob. She was devastated and I think a part of her always blamed my good friend and mentor, the Duc de Montreuil, and, by point of association, me, for sending him into the city on an errand. We have not spoken in some time.”

“I am so sorry, Andre,” Bliss told him with genuine emotion. “I did not know.”

“Because I had not told you,” he admitted with a sad chuckle and a shake of his head. “But I will. Tell you everything hence forth.” He kissed her sweetly on the lips and she gazed adoringly up at him, a smile on her lush mouth.

“You do not...dislike my Dodie, do you?” she inquired tentatively and he felt his mouth go dry. He thought for a moment he must detest her but her pragmatism only served to interest Andre. “I mean, after the quarrel this morning. She means well, she can just be a bit...hardheaded sometimes. She is an idealist, really.”

“Is she always so...”

“Hardheaded? Agonistic? Yes!” laughed Bliss. “It’s part of the reason I adore her so. Oh say that you do not dislike her, Andre!”

“What did she mean about your father?” Andre said after a moment of watching the sparkling water glide quickly over the rocks in the stream, turning them shimmering silver. He neatly evaded her question, not sure how he would answer her if he himself had known his own mind on the matter. It was no great shock to suppose that someone such as Dorothea, with such strong convictions, would not exactly endear her to an old codger like the Colonel but there seemed to be quite a bit of ill will in her words.

“Papa can make such a fuss,” Bliss sighed as quiet as the breeze. “He always turns everything upside down upon homecomings and I imagine all the more so with you here.”

“How is it,” he uttered inquisitively, “that he allows you to be married before your elder sister?”

“But he hasn’t! Dodie is married,” Bliss bit her lip. “Or *was*; I never know quite the words to use. Oh, it’s all so heartbreaking. Christopher Martin Grieve; he served with papa in Cairo, that’s how they met. She’s given up wearing the ring, she told me so last night. It’s been a while...”

“I’m sorry, I did not know.”

“Because I did not tell you,” teased Bliss.

Cotard suggested perhaps they should, in light, get back and Bliss shook her head fervently, appealing to him, “Let’s stay! Just for a little while longer. Just us.” He nodded and sat beside her, taking her hand. They exchanged kisses and murmured endearments until the sun began to fade as pale as the cerulean sky above Kingsharrow.


	5. Chapter 5

“Sanjay,” Dorothea exclaimed cheerfully as she passed by the open doorway to her father’s study and caught sight of the tall Indian man standing by the window. A halo of sunlight illuminated his rich, coffee-colored skin and mass of glossy black curls beneath his neat white turban. She crossed the room in a couple of bouncing, skirt--swishing strides and embraced him, her smile radiant. “I am pleased to see you; it has been long, hasn’t it?”

“Mrs. Grieve,” he replied in an atypically proper English accent, grinning happily as he kissed her upon each cheek in turn, “it is my delight to make your acquaintance again.”

Dorothea tutted. “Why so formal, _Mr. Kapoor_? If there is one good thing about having to suffer papa’s presence, it is having you here with us!”

“Well, I know my presence brings you much happiness, but, really Dorothea, you didn’t have to dress for the occasion,” he laughed, taking her hand, holding it above her head and twirling her around. “You look lovely!”

“It’s a long and rather embarrassing story,” she admitted with a demure blush, smoothing down her skirt.

“And Bliss?” he inquired, clearing his throat stiffly.

“She’s down by the Fulloch,” she told him as gently as she could, “with him.” Sanjay nodded, as if it was expected and, honestly, wasn’t it? She held his hand, giving it a tender squeeze. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling impotent, helpless, “it is a difficult situation and I do not envy your position.”

“I always knew the day would come,” he sighed heavily. “It was an inevitability that I have had many years to prepare for. I became familiar with the Major during his stay with us in Bombay, well, as much as a lowly servant such as I may become familiar with his master’s guests; I believe he is a good man who will strive to make her a good husband, despite perhaps a spotty reputation from his youth.”

“But you are not a servant, Sanjay,” she said ardently. “Papa does not pay you, you work for him only to be close to her. Why do you not spare yourself the pain and leave, just...go?”

“It would hurt more than anything to be separated from her, even in these circumstances,” he declared so passionately, Dorothea could feel the wetness welling up at the corners of her eyes. It both touched her and made her tremendously envious. To be cared for so fervently, against so many odds... She dreamed of what it would feel like. She stifled a sniffle and, taking his face in her hands, kissed him warmly on the cheek.

“Are you in there, you darkie swot?” a haughty male voice echoed in the hallway just beyond the door. “The old monster seems to have misplaced his new dress jacket and, as you packed the blasted thing in the first place...” Sanderson stopped himself in mid-sentence as he stepped into the study and caught sight of Dorothea. He coughed uncomfortably, trying to regain his composure. “Mrs. Grieve, I did not know you were. Forgive me, I...”

“It’s quite all right, Sanderson,” she said, casting an eye towards Sanjay, giving him an encouraging wink. He, in turn, tried to suppress a smile. “I should leave Sanjay to his work.” She kissed his cheek, whispering to him, “You will be well, won’t you?” He gave her shoulder a soft clasp to assure her that he would. “If the pompous old bastard gives you any trouble, you will tell me about it. Now off you go!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Nerves, Sissy, it’s just nerves,” Dorothea tried to comfort her sister, holding Bliss’ silken brown tresses back away from her face, lifting it off of her flushed neck as the younger sibling emptied the contents of her stomach into the chamber pot. “A masquerade ball, is he mad?” Dodie addressed the question to Edmund, who was standing by the opened window smoking. “What idiocy has taken him now? And I’m sure that is not helping, Ed!” she indicated the bluish-gray smoke wafting from his cigarillo.

He just shrugged cavalierly, grinding the tobacco roll against the sill and throwing it to the ground below. “A masquerade ball to commemorate the announcement of the blissful union between his youngest daughter and the esteemed Major Cotard.” He threw up his hands. “That’s what he said, more or less; we weren’t exactly having a poignant father son heart to heart. He can barely stand the sight of me,” he said in an undertone, more to himself than to anyone. Dodie had heard, however, and her brow furrowed in concern and sympathy; he dismissed it with his usual offhand attitude but his sister could see that a sense of disquiet remained.

“A masquerade,” Bliss squeaked miserably in between retches and sobs. “He promised, nothing lavish, he said!” She grasped her sister’s dress frantically, “I can’t--I can’t...” Dodie reminded her to breathe, long, deep inhalations. “Oh, Andre will be disappointed, but, Dodie, Edmund, I can’t go through with this!”

“Don’t worry, dearest,” Dodie tried to reassure her, looking to Edmund worriedly for a solution; he could offer no support save for a desperate shrug as he threw his hands in the air. “We’ll think of something! Don’t we always?” Bliss nodded reluctantly at first and then managed a heartbreaking smile as her sister retrieved a handkerchief from the boudoir table and wiped away the tears and spittle from her chin. “We have to go to supper now; you’ll be all right, won’t you now?” Dorothea inquired and Bliss answered in the affirmative. “If you need anything, just you ask Hen.” She kissed her forehead and stood. “And if you feel as if you’ll be ill again, send Hen to get me...”

“All right, she gotten the idea,” Edmund said, taking Dorothea’s arm and leading her away. “Stop fussing; you’re clucking like a mother hen! You can start worrying how we’re going to deal with the old monster during an entire meal!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Ah, finally,” Colonel Alfred Moore harrumphed as Dodie and Edmund entered the modest dining hall, standing and straightening his uniform jacket and smoothing down his dark gray hair. The room was dazzling with the soft glow of many candles, more than had been lit in there for many a year. The chandelier was ablaze in all its gilt glory and the tiny flames were twinkling like starlight in the massive mirrors that lined the wall. Even Dorothea was rather taken aback, breathless at the admittedly romantic sight; life had not come to Kingsharrow in such full force since the days before her mother had passed on. Though the thought of Sanderson and Joycie, Hen and Rogers doing all this work both made her want to laugh and pity them.

“We usually take supper at nine o’clock, sir,” Dodie informed him, glancing at the mantle clock nearest the door; it read eight-fifteen sharp.

“Well, what do I care of how you do things while I’m absent, girl?” the older man snapped austerely. “I asked Mrs. Joyce to have supper prepared for eight o’clock and, all thanks to you, it’s probably gone cold by now! See, see what I was telling you, Cotard--” Dorothea noticed for the first time the Frenchman standing silently behind the Colonel--“about insubordination among the ranks!”

Biting the bottom corner of her lip, Dodie felt her cheeks burning with mortification and humiliation, unable to look the Major in the eye. She had been managing the old sod for years with a steely demeanor and a fixed smile and wasn’t about to crumple now, even if she seemed uncommonly concerned with what Cotard might think of her. She felt Edmund take her hand, giving it a loving pinch, and gained composure enough to liven a little.

“I believe you were saying, Colonel,” Cotard cleared his throat awkwardly, “that one had to show consideration, empathy,” he said each word with pointed emphasis, “with his men in order to secure their loyalty and their...love.” Dorothea, still evading his gaze, couldn’t help but grin at the Major’s flagrant ‘insubordination.’

“Yes, well,” Moore blustered as they sat at the table, the Colonel at the head, whilst Dodie and Edmund sat beside each other, Cotard seated across from her. “Just shows you the difference between the military and family: in the His Majesty’s army, you can execute dissenters!” He laughed boisterously, as if he’d just made the most stunning of humorous remarks ever cracked in the Western World.

Cotard chuckled politely but, if Dorothea had interpreted correctly, distastefully. She hadn’t misjudged him, she had known he was a good man from the moment she set eyes on him, first talked to him but the very thought that he might have genuine regard for them--for her--in the face of her father--his commanding officer, his friend, made her tremble a bit in places that made her blush just to think about.

“Of course, you would have met my son and eldest daughter by now, Andre,” Alfred continued, not bothering to make formal introductions but instead waving his hand dismissively in their direction. “I am sorry Bliss could not join us. The poor girl, taken unwell just now, during such a joyous occurrence. Tell me, how is she?”

“She simply needs to rest,” Dorothea replied briskly; why was it that every conversation had to come back to her sister? “She is not ailing, only just terribly anxious; she only has but a case of the nerves. You know that she has suffered from such since she was a child; I have given her some of the poppy juice the apothecary gave to her and put her to bed. She should be to rights by tomorrow.”

“I did not ask you,” Alfred sniffed cuttingly, shaking his head and looking to Andre with a long suffering sigh. “Moreover, I heard it was your idea that Bliss should go down to Fulloch. This early in the spring and with nothing more than a shawl! You know how sensitive her constitution is! No wonder she’s taken a chill! I wouldn’t be surprised if that was your intention all along!” he added almost as a digression.

Edmund was outraged but, to everyone‘s surprise, not nearly so much as Andre, who was colored with indignation on Dodie’s behalf. His first thought was to pity; what a wretched existence they endured, being treated the way they were! But the pang he felt deep inside of his heart spoke of a more serious sentiment hidden behind the much easier emotion of mercy. “It was my suggestion,” Cotard fibbed. “I saw the stream from the breakfast room window and asked my beloved if she would not like to take a walk with me along its bank.” Moore accepted the admission with an incredulous grunt.

Andre understood now that she was eluding eye contact out of embarrassment not some misplaced sense of loathing for her father. This was not the man he had known going on three years now but, frighteningly, he had the feeling this was the true man not that witty, warm officer he had spent time with in India. He felt as if a fist were clutching his heart, twisting it around and it was only now beginning to dawn on him what the cause might be. More than betrayal, more than outrage at duplicity; perhaps the root of it wasn’t even the Colonel himself in the first place. Maybe it was someone else...

“I was also told that you started a row with Major Cotard this morning, Dodo,” Alfred continued as he chewed on a particularly tough piece of gristle in his beef. “I was counting on you to make him feel comfortable, at home, but once again you find a way to disappoint me...”

“We were having a discussion,” it was Andre who spoke again, his tone ever more abrupt; even Edmund was left agape. “There was no hostility in it whatsoever. I have quite enjoyed your lovely daughter’s most agreeable company as well as being on the receiving end of her somewhat ardent ideals...” He chuckled and his body began to stir as his comment pulled a smile from her charming little mouth. “She is bright as well as beautiful.”

“I thank you, sir, for tolerating our Dodo with such grace,” sighed Colonel Moore, shaking his head despondently. “She’s ideas beyond her realm of comprehension, I’m afraid. If she’d only get it into her head that if the Froggies hadn’t gone around lopping off the heads of their aristos, we would none of us be where we are today and Andre wouldn’t be sharing a table with us right now, preparing to enter into blissful matrimony with your sister.”

“That’s rather a tasteless observation, considering the fairly less than idyllic circumstance that has brought Major Cotard to this point,” Dodie scoffed, no longer able to keep mute. She raised her head for the first time since she entered the dining hall and gazed straight at Andre, into that wonderfully large, coffee colored stare. His expression was captivatingly unreadable but she thought she detected a rather wicked smirk at the corner of his mouth.

Was he feeling it too, these butterflies quivering inside her breast? Oh, how she wished he’d could feel her breast, and kiss it, suckle... How could she even think such a thing? Men like him, they did not even consider woman like her. In addition, he was her sister’s affianced! She shouldn’t even be entertaining thoughts of entertaining thoughts such as these! She was Dowdy Dodie, a position she knew well. But did he really think she was bright?

“Nonsense!” tish-toshed the Colonel. “Humor is one of the Major’s strong points; he knows how to take a joke, girl! Edmund!” he barked suddenly, making everyone gathered ‘round the table jump. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough,” he indicated the mostly empty bottle of port.

Edmund threw Dorothea a wary glance and mumbled, “On the contrary, I think I am just getting started! Cheers,” he said, tossing back the last contents of his wine glass and refilling it generously.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Major Cotard,” Dorothea called out as Andre stepped out of the study he had been sharing--having an after meal drink and a smoke--with Colonel Moore. She hurried up behind his departing form even as he halted, hearing his name called, and placed a hand upon his arm, feeling the mighty brawn of his bicep tighten powerfully before drawing her touch away bashfully. “What you said, to papa, during supper...”

He caught her retreating hand, intertwining his own thick fingers--skill roughened and tanned, the backs of which were dusted with the silkiest of black hair--with hers until their palms met. She couldn’t have run away from him if she had tried, he had her trapped, captured with the most tender of gestures. “Please, I do not need commendation for what should have been an apparent course of action.” He raised his grip whilst bowing at the waist and she thought he might kiss the back of her hand when instead, he turned it over and pressed his hot lips to the skin of her wrist where her pulse was thundering; she could just feel the enticing tickle of his coarse evening stubble. “It was my pleasure.”

“It must be something of a dreadful upset,” she said, distractedly trying to conceal the small pant in her uneven breath. “I know you are very close with him. He doesn’t mean it, not really.”

“Whether it was deliberate or not, it was an affront I could not in good conscience overlook,” replied Andre firmly.

“Sir,” she teased with a bit of a giggle, covering her true sentiment, “I’m afraid you flatter me!” Her brow furrowed and she asked of him earnestly, “Will you come with me? There is something I would like to show you.”

He grinned mischievously, “You are not out to start another controversy, are you?”

She chortled. “No, no more controversies! This way,” she instructed.

He nodded in assent and followed her as she led him down a darkened corridor, not commonly in use and therefore only sparsely lit, mostly neglected during Mrs. Joyce’s cleaning rounds. The door she chose to open was an elegant little thing with ornate molding running about its edges and a delicate brass handle. The knob stuck at first but as Dodie applied pressure, the hatch popped open and she ushered the Major inside.

He could not contain an astonished gasp as Dorothea lit a lamp and his attention was drawn instantly to a great, gilt--framed portrait hanging above the white marble inglenook. The soft eyes, the full, smiling mouth, the glossy chestnut locks: it could have been Bliss, the subject was a twin of his betrothed. But it was not. It was quite obvious the painting was aged, perhaps older than Bliss herself, the style of the dress quite old-fashioned. “Our mama,” Dorothea explained, joining him in his mesmerized reverence, “Georgiana Rose. The resemblance is striking, is it not?”

“It is,” he concurred in a hushed tone. “To both of you. She died when you were young, non? When Bliss was but a babe, she took a fall--”

“Down by the Fulloch,” nodded Dorothea, “where the hill rises and slopes straight away down to the current. It broke her neck before she was even to the bottom. It was late autumn; the frost was only beginning to scatter across the ground. Edmund and I were always warned not to play near the incline but we were wild, silly. Papa disapproved of our tomfoolery in general but it always made mama smile. One evening, we wandered a bit too close and mama panicked. I slipped and fell on my backside, and as mama rushed over to us, she too slid on the frozen ground; she was not as lucky as I.

“My papa loved her very, very dearly and he could not help but to hold us responsible for losing her,” she snuffled and Andre could see the glimmer of tears forming at the angles of her eyes. “Even as a child, Bliss was an almost perfect reminder of her and my papa took to that for solace. It is not fair, to either her or us, but then, pain from loss is seldom rational. I am sorry, I have not spoken of this in some time,” she said, her voice slightly tremulous.

“Thank you,” he murmured, placing his hand beneath her chin and tipping her head upwards so that he could kiss her forehead. For a breathless moment she thought he might put his mouth to hers and a shiver of excitement ran along her spine; they were so close, wrapped in the sensuous shadows alone together. “For showing me this.” She smiled up into his intense but gentle gaze--friendly, she reminded herself, only friendly--and, eventually after lavishing in his attention and regard, she bid him goodnight with a hint of regret, never more envious of Bliss in her life.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Well,” Edmund asked expectantly, jamming his cigarillo into the curved lip of an ornate oriental vase and pushing himself off from the wall he had been leaned against, his arms crossed tightly in anticipation. He watched eagerly as Sanjay exited Bliss’ chambers into the corridor, carefully closing the door so it made nothing more but a dull thump in the quiet of the still air. “What did she say?” Sanjay gave him only a small dip of the head and a barely perceptible smirk. “Fantastic,” Edmund clapped.

“What is fantastic?” Dorothea asked, wearily making her way down the hallway towards her own bedroom. “Well, look at the two of you; someone’s let the cat out about the pigeons. What conspirators you pair look like! Come on, confess,” she wrapped her arms about Edmund loosely only to find the two sensitive spots just beneath and in back of his armpits, tickling until he was squirming. “What are you up to? Speak, knave!”

He managed to disentangle himself from her while keeping hold of her arms and, lifting them above her head, spun her around. “We’ve a plan, Dodie,” Edmund said, grinning devilishly.

“Oh no, it’s always trouble when you get that look in your eyes,” Dodie said suspiciously. Eyeing Sanjay, she told him, “I thought you had more sense than to scheme with Ed!”

“Just listen,” urged Edmund, “promise you’ll at least listen!” Reluctantly, she agreed and, if possible, his grin only became ever more cunningly devious. “You, my dear Dorothea, are going to attend the masquerade tomorrow on Major Cotard’s arm as Bliss! Dodie, you promised to listen!” he frowned as she scoffed and began to walk away.

“That was before I knew you’d gone completely mad!” she laughed incredulously. “How do you propose we fool everyone--including her affianced--that I am Bliss?”

“It’s a masquerade, Dodie!” enthused Edmund, caught in the splendor of his own brilliance. “Costumes, masks, remember? You are so alike Bliss and the parts of you that are not... well, we’ll just cover those up! Don’t you see, it’s perfect! Everyone gets what they want: Bliss need not attend and Sanjay may be able to steal few hours alone with dear Sissy. And you get some time with the Frog and don’t you even deny that is something you have wanted since you first set eyes upon him!”

“No, Edmund,” Dorothea sighed distastefully, “it’s cruel! I will not go along with it! Did you ever even think of Bliss when you were coming up with this plot of yours?”

“Of course!” he replied with a wounded pout. “She thinks the whole thing is a wonderful idea! She thinks it’s a laugh!”

“It’s not fair,” Dodie continued to protest. “She’s innocent, she trusts you and you’re using her to have a bit of fun! Because, ultimately, that’s what you get out of this, isn’t it, Ed? It’s not right. And if you think that anyone will be fooled into believing I am Sissy...”

“Dodie, you are taking this far too seriously! It’s a game; you remember enjoyment, you used to have a bit of it yourself from time to time,” he nudged her.

She sighed theatrically, crossing her arms and then sighing again. She bit her lip, rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, tapped her foot. She knew Edmund wouldn’t let up until he had his way and, truth be told, it wasn’t entirely an unappealing idea. “All right,” she yielded finally, wanting to pinch the smug look of satisfaction and enthusiasm on his face. “I blame you,” she told Sanjay sharply. “I thought you knew better! Just one thing: What exactly am I going to wear?”

“Sanjay?” Edmund cocked an eyebrow at the coffee-skinned man who once again nodded his head.

“What?” she chuckled. “I’m going to wear something of Sanjay’s? That ought to be the sensation of the festivities!” Then she remembered the colorful trunk full of revealing and gaudy garments Bliss had brought from India. “No,” she balked at first in disbelief. “No, Edmund, really. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t! Are you even listening to me?”


	6. Chapter 6

For the first time in years, Kingsharrow was a-flitter with activity. Everyone who had ever owed Colonel Moore a favor, and with his distinguishing charismatic sleight of hand turned out to be quite a few, had converged upon the manor to help organize and decorate for the night’s merriment. Andre had visited Bliss in her bedchambers after she had missed breakfast, worried on her condition, and had found her uncharacteristically apprehensive and perhaps even a little aloof.

His first thoughts when he had been told of her state of wellness, or lack thereof, had been a selfish one: His stomach had gone completely to knots knowing what morning illness frequently suggested. The woman who was to be his wife and he had nearly become ill at the thought that she might be carrying his child? It wasn’t natural, it wasn’t the way he wanted his marriage to be; that sort of thing was distinguishing of careless lovers and secret liaisons in darkened rooms, not adoring husbands. It unnerved him, to feel that way; he had to get away.

He had stolen away to the carriage house, chosen a beautiful white mare who reminded him of his own beloved mount, Jaya, in India and had just rode off across the moors, needing to clear his mind. He found himself following the Fulloch, occasionally trotting along its bank, breathing deeply the cool forenoon air. She was not pregnant, he was sure of that even though his morning call had assisted in his initial suspicions. He would know, he would sense it. And yet, the notion was still disconcerting, which, in of itself, was unsettling.

He came to the ravine and his mare began to whicker fretfully as he nudged her towards the verge. He glanced down as he soothed the horse with gentle words, his breath catching as he grasped just how far a drop it was to the ever flowing waters below. He started in unexpected surprise when he heard the voice behind him, outwardly retaining his poise as the brisk stamping of hooves approached. “I assume you have been told about the...misfortune we suffered here,” Alfred sniffed.

Cotard turned his head to see the older man atop a restless sable steed, resplendent in his full dress uniform, the ropes of braid and honorary gold shining in the pale sunlight. His hair, gray while still retaining a rare, small number of streaks of ginger, was neatly combed and tied into a tight queue, his freckled cheeks were pink from the invigorating wind that came up off the fields of heather. He resembled more the man Andre had known than he had seen since he had arrived yesterday. After everything he had believed had been upturned, to see a part of it restored to him was as disquieting as the situation with Bliss.

“Yes,” he answered softly, revolving his concentration back to the creek. “I was told. And I am very sorry. We had talked about Georgiana in Burundi but knowing, seeing...It is different.”

The Colonel sighed heavily. “I suppose Dorothea prattled on about it,” he crooked a distasteful eyebrow. “You have noticed, I am sure, that she has a tendency to do so. She’s as changeable as her mother was, the girl is,” he scoffed and Andre could hardly conceal his shock at the damning remark. It was disturbingly incongruous with the impression Dodie had presented him with and a harsh reminder of the realities of the Colonel’s deceptions.

“The celebration, are you sure it is necessary?” Cotard inquired, shifting the subject of conversation rather glaringly. “It is just that I believe it is making Bliss uncomfortable, that is perchance the reason for her ailment of nervous strain.”

“Necessary?” laughed Alfred. “Of course it is not strictly necessary, what gala is?! This will be the talk of Edinburgh, as far as London, if we’re lucky! Bliss,” he shrugged dismissively, “she is just being obstinate because I promised her a small engagement gathering. She will love it,” he said confidently, “once she sees the crowd and costumes! Bliss adores a ball! And what kind of father would I appear if I let my precious daughter wed without a to-do?” Andre was not at all sure that his motivations were that wholesome and doting nor that Bliss would indeed enjoy the evening’s proceedings, though he did not say so in fear of provoking Moore further.

Bliss had always seemed so lively, so personable in social circumstances but he had been wondering about that side of her lately, if it was not just another performance much alike the one her father put on, though hers were borne of insecurities while the Colonel’s seemed of ruthlessness and disaffection as he coveted the proper appearance of wealth and standing. Cotard could not bear to be in his presence any longer, not with all the thoughts clouding his mind, and excused himself to wander a bit more until he was needed again. He had much to ponder.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Edmund chuckled, reclining on the bed and listening to the commotion being raised behind the oriental silk dressing screen. “If you don’t come out from behind that thing soon,” he warned with a cheerful smirk, “I shall become suspicious and most likely have to challenge Sanjay to a duel!”

“It is not my fault,” called Sanjay, exasperation evident in his voice, “if your sister is an obstinate...”

“Get off!” came Dodie’s scornful intrusion, the sound of slapping flesh following. “I can do it myself, it’s not like I’ve never dressed myself before! Leave it, I can tie it myself! That’s it! Out!” And with a mighty shove, Sanjay came stumbling out from behind the partition. “Thank you!”

“Right,” Sanjay scoffed. “Because you obviously know better than I how to wear ghagra choli!”

“Oh Sanjay,” she pleaded with all the sweetness she could muster, “how does this go again? I promise I won’t strike you again. It‘s just that you‘ve had a better feel of my than my husband ever did!”

“Here,” he sighed in acquiescence, disappearing behind the screen once again, “that is the orhni, you start it at the waist and it goes over the shoulder…”

“Is it supposed to be so...translucent?”

“Yes! Hold still!”

“And it’s supposed to cover me? I can’t do this, I feel naked, I cannot go out like this!”

Edmund sighed dramatically, rolling onto his back. “Dodie, love, we’ve been over this! You’ll look absolutely lovely. Come on, come out so I can see.”

“I don’t want to,” replied Dodie though it was Sanjay’s turn for retribution as he tossed her into the middle of the bedroom with a playful heave. Edmund sat up instantly, his breath filling his lungs sharply. She looked more than lovely as she nervously and awkwardly adjusted her Indian costume; she was stunning, sumptuous, seductive! There was not an eye that would not turn to her. She wore a crimson blouse embellished with gilt embroidery, cut low against her breast, accentuating the ample curve of her generous bosom, and high against her belly, exposing her navel where a faux ruby rested. The long gold brocade skirt rested low on her hips, a sash garlanded with tassels about the waistband and the diaphanous scarlet orhni draped about her torso alluringly. Her wrists and ankles were adorned with golden bangles, her upper left arm enclosed in a solid band.

Hen had made her eyes up with thick black tincture that came to a point at the corners and her lips as dark and lush as ripened cherries. Her auburn hair was in a cascade of luscious curls--a struggle for even the talented Henrietta that mold Dorothea’s tresses in such a way. “And now, to make you the Queen of the ball,” Sanjay smiled, quite proud with himself for his handiwork. He produced a golden crown: A band that would rest against her brow with an attached half mask in a style reminiscent of ancient cultures such as Rome that ended just above her cheeks and curving up over the bridge of her nose and fitted her closely. The eye holes were expressively upturned and complimented her make-up and arched eyebrows adorned the forehead. Delicate metal ringlets dangled on hinges from the ring and rested softly against her loose mane. “Hannibal’s concubines did not look so beautiful!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Dorothea screwed up her face and gave Sanjay a playful pinch. “It does feel comfortable and...OH!” She had caught sight of herself in the full length mirror and was scrutinizing her appearance in disbelieving approval. “Is that really me?” she whispered.

“It’s perfect!” Edmund said in wonderment and again repeated with a joyous laugh, “It is perfect!” He was circling her, staring in awe of the transformation from doting homebody to sensual temptress. The Froggy won’t know what hit him, he thought with a crooked grin. He had always known his sister to be a handsome woman but the captivating beauty before him made even him speechless. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, “Oh, my darling, this **_will be_** a night to remember!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“They’ve been awaiting you,” Hen informed Dodie as, accompanied by Edmund, she sneaked down the lushly ornamented stair. The Colonel had gone all out with the decoration, gaudy and overwhelming, just as she had expecting; she couldn’t turn a corner without running into a garland dripping of silk flowers and shimmering ribbon. The guests, a fair amount by Dorothea’s estimation, had all enjoyed proper introductions and had migrated now to the dining hall where a great buffet had been laid out for them, an extravagant feast of grand proportions, complemented by overflowing horns of plenty. “Now, the old monster’s made the declaration of betrothal, there was a great cheer. I did just as you said: told them Miss Bliss was feeling in a way and would be down late; he wasn’t pleased but he understood.”

“Right,” Edmund nodded, energized by the whole operation as if it were a covert military maneuver as he furtively peeked around the corner, “I see him standing by the glass garden doors in the ballroom. Are you ready, Dodie?” His sister nodded apprehensively as she fidgeted with the bust of her bodice for the hundredth time. He slapped her hands away telling her, “It’s supposed to be as low as possible, bear in mind! And remember that you are to call him Andre **not** Major or Monsieur Cotard!”

“What if she has some sort of...pet name for him like ‘sweetening’ or, oh, I don’t know, ‘Froggy pants’?” Dodie bit her lip. Detecting Edmund’s crocked eyebrow and the chuckle on his lips, she added defensively, “It was an example! I called Christopher Martin some pretty absurd things under the influence of love!”

Edmund, decked out in an elegant, slimly form-fitted Centurion’s breast plate, gauntlets and a sinuous white tunic, stockings beneath his knee length boots, pulled a golden helmet with an affixed mask on over his neatly combed and queued ginger hair. “We’re ready then!” He gave his sister a peck of the cheek, pinching her chin. “I would wish you luck but there is no need for it! Go! Go, you little minx!”

In earnest, Dorothea skipped down the rest of the stairway to the hard wood grain of the ground floor; her slippers and skirt were soft whispers as she walked, concurring with the murmur rose up among the merrymakers she passed. This was it, the party crowd had begun to recognize her as Bliss; there was no turning back now.

Her eyes alighted upon him a moment before his own found her. Unaware of herself, she had paused to take a deep breath, staggered and gawkingly thunderstruck his suave flair. The cheeky bastard was dressed as Don Giovanni, his high-waisted frock coat buttoned neatly, the shade of red roses, the shade of virgin blood. His sword was suspended suggestively at his hip, an embroidered waistcoat of yellow gold met the midnight velvet of his taut black breeches and a cape was draped dashingly over one shoulder, tied across his breast with gilt braid. His hair was smartly slicked back with pomade into a taut queue and a black mask in the form of a silk scarf dashed across his eyes. It had suddenly gotten very warm; near sultry, Dorothea would say. She couldn’t breathe as he strode towards her, lengthy, stylish stride on those long legs.

“Ma chere, are you quite all right?” he asked, placing a strong hand so achingly tender against her flushed cheek; her heart was fluttering ‘neath her breast. “Perhaps you are still unwell? You should not have come down at all if you are feeling poorly.” It wasn’t a scolding or of a patronizing tone but derived of true concern for her comfort and welfare. For Bliss. Why had she agreed to this again?

She managed a slight but reassuring smile. “No truly, I am feeling fit,” she told him demurely. “I am sorry I missed the announcement,” she told him demurely.

“Escaped, more like,” he chuckled. “You missed nothing save for your papa congratulating himself at his own good fortune. I am glad you were not here.” He threw a glance across the room and Dorothea’s eyes wandered with his, widening as they fell upon what he was gazing towards: a robust and vigorous older man audaciously festooned in an outrageous Bacchus costume, the skirt far too short to be decent as the sandal laces climbed his bare legs like vines, the grinning golden mask more grotesque than friendly. Alike the God whose appearance he had borrowed, the man was drinking profusely and molesting any young lady who had the misfortune to come into his grasp.

“That is not...I mean, that cannot be...” she stammered. Cotard nodded in grim confirmation. “Papa?” she squealed incredulously. To Andre‘s amazement and amusement, she unexpectedly burst out laughing, concealing her tear-streaked face in the smooth material of his jacket in order to stifle the sounds of her hilarity. “I thought he sought to restore our reputation not sully...Oh my goodness, what _is_ he doing to that young woman?! It is positively tawdry! Scandalous.”

“Talk of scandals,” he was smirking down at her, his fingers running from her cheek to glide across the plump, yielding flesh of her heaving bosom, the pale, creamy globes swelling with every breath she took. She gasped but couldn’t rightly slap his caress away, not if she were to keep up the deception. O, and what deception was that exactly, Dorothea, a voice inside her own head taunted, the one Edmund would have you engage in or the one you play with yourself that you are not doing this for your own sake, because you adore him? “Wherever did you get that attire, ma chere?”

She squealed giddily as he filled his palm with one amply sizeable breast, his sinuously long fingers engulfing its extent and squeezing playfully. Her nipple ached as it hardened to a rigid rose bud, pushing out against the thing fabric of her bodice against his roughened hand. “Ma--” she began before scolding herself; one slip and she could give the whole thing away. In her defense, he was rather distracting her, sensation throbbing through her bosom where he touched her. “My darling,” she recovered herself rather resourcefully. “Everyone is gawking, they’ll all see...”

“And be terribly envious,” she teased as he placed his mouth to her ear and nipped the lobe mischievously. “And I shall be triumphant for I and I alone get to touch you like this.” He circled the tightening nub at the peak of her supple breast with the ball of his thumb, pressing his eager body against hers as her back arched forcefully.

“I need...I need some air!” she gasped, reluctantly putting an end to his delicious caress. She stumbled towards the towering glass doors that lead out into the garden, from which she could already feel the cooler air wafting in, without heeding his hurried warnings not to go out into the stone courtyard. She pushed through the crowd of merrymakers, engaging recklessly in all sorts of debauchery; butterflies and soldiers, predatory felines and lustful conquerors. It was a heady and bewildering blur of decadence and fantasy and Dodie’s mind was in a haze when she stopped straight in her tracks and let out a startled yelp, practically leaping backwards into Cotard’s arms.

Right ahead of her on the path stood a massive gray bulk, its black eye turning in its socket theatrically as its trunk swung from side to side: A life-sized elephant marionette adorned in Indian colorfuls, its enormous tusks arranged with garlands of red velvet, silver bells and white silk flowers. She began to giggle uncontrollably as his embrace enclosed her protectively. “Good grief! It’s a bloody giant panto pachyderm!” she laughed hysterically. His deep chuckle rumbled in his chest as she nestled into him. “I thought this was meant to be a tasteful affair! But I suppose I shouldn’t have misjudged the God of excess in there, eh? All hail Bacchus, deity of garishness!”

“In here,” Cotard guided her, still chortling, into an empty, unused parlor that he had spotted from the garden patio. She collapsed upon a fainting couch as her laughing subsided, placing one hand behind her head while the other rested upon her stomach. “And I was afraid you would not enjoy yourself!” he grinned.

“Wonderful! And I thought he’d show a bit of a sense of moderation,” she smiled. She unraveled her orhni and ran the sheer silken scarf through her fingers, shifting it across the bottom half of her face beguilingly like an exotic dancing girl of the far east. She took a deep breath and looked around, propping herself up on her elbows as she gazed fondly about her. “I haven’t been in here in ages! We used to play in here as children, always getting into the worst sort of trouble!”

“You can take your disguise off now, I think we‘re safe,” Cotard said, gazing out the French doors they had come in through at the revelry; a cheerful and undoubtedly inebriated couple was currently gamboling in the fountain and attracting attention from those not otherwise engaged in their own pursuits. No one would notice they were missing.

“Dunno,” Dorothea shrugged, “I quite like it, the mask. It’s curious,” she observed, “because you’re supposed to hide yourself behind them, aren’t you? But I feel, oh, I don’t know, more free somehow, unbound; more myself than I have been in rather some time. Odd, isn’t it? Odd but lovely.”

“Odd but lovely,” he repeated, sitting on the edge of the couch at her feet. He removed her slippers, one at a time, stroking the bottoms of her feet as she squirmed, ticklish to his touch. Pushing her skirt up a bit, he shackled her ankle in his gentle grip and pressed his burning lips to the soft flesh of her leg, moving his kiss slowly up her calf to her knee. His tongue rasped at her skin in delicate little suggestions of caresses.

“Andre...” she gasped, bolting upright as his fingers wandered higher. He caught her face in his hands and pulled it to his, ensnaring her mouth with his own. His tongue thrust forth boldly, taking possession of her in a primal show of masculine dominance. He tasted of rich wine as he drank of her unhurriedly, passionately, his fingers brushing through the loose, wispy fall of her crimped tresses.

“I say,” a voice interrupted so abruptly and unexpectedly, Dodie leapt into the air where she sat, “anyone in here?” A dark, male figure was silhouetted in the slightly ajar terrace door, a dizzily giggling female companion bumping against him as she urged him onwards, perhaps confused as to why he had stopped.

“In use,” Dorothea and Andre called in unison, and the former burst into laughter as the man clumsily offered his contrition and lurched away, prudently shutting the door behind him.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” she murmured back candidly. Oh bugger, now she’d gone and done it! She’d said it, not only confessing it to herself for the first time but aloud, to *him*! How could she go back when her secret heart had been revealed? What’s worse was, he didn’t even know it was her; he thought it was his precious, beloved little Bliss and God only knows how many times she had uttered those very same words, sighing softly in his ear as he slept beside her. “Oh, how I love you.” She threw her arms about his neck, wishing the night would never end, that the deception never had to now that it had gone from her soul.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hen all but shriek as a strong arm caught her about the waist and pulled her towards the shadow, nearly overbalancing the tray she was carrying and spilling the wine held in flute glasses upon its silver surface. She had just enough time to quickly deposit it on a nearby bench as she was drawn roughly against the fiercely yet elegantly strapping stature of a man. No gentleman, that was for sure; she was getting dreadfully weary of this garish event dreadfully promptly. “Oi, listen, you toad, don‘t think no one will hear me if I shout...”

“I certainly hope they won’t,” Edmund replied playfully, the breath from his chuckle caressing the fragile shell of her ear. He hauled her backwards into his private library, resting her pleasingly round bottom against the edge of his desk. “Because I plan on making you do so most enthusiastically!”

“Edmund,” she moaned as he nuzzled what was exposed of her bosom over her modestly cut frock, “what if someone saw?”

“The master of the house seducing the parlor maid,” laughed Edmund. “Oh, I do hate being a creature of clichés but I doubt anyone would look twice. Though it would go a long way to repairing the rumor that I dance on the other side of the ballroom, so to speak.” He had her linen mobcap off, untidily taking her golden curls down while kissing her eagerly. “Have they really had their hands on you all night?”

“Uh,” she groaned, “you’ve no idea! The dirty old men, thinking they can have a wander wherever, whenever they like! It’s disgusting,” she told him, wrinkling her nose as she lifted her hair to assist him in unfastening her gown.

“Yeah, well, I have the cure for that,” he said huskily, yanking her dress down to her waist as she freed her arms from the coarse fabric. Gathering her skirt at her hips, she sat upon the desk’s wooden surface, her legs spread for him as his charging prick nestled into her waiting femininity. He entered her with an energetic stab, filling her as his hot mouth sought the dusky summits of her breasts through her thin shift, suckling ravenously.

“Oh, oh God, oh Edmund!” she panted, clinging to him as he frantically pumped her, driving his fat, erect shaft deep inside her snug, pink depths. He climbed onto the desk atop her as she lay back against its oak plane, continuing to plunge his cock relentlessly into her slick softness. She reached crisis as his own was slowing, his seed already wet against her thighs. “Edmund,” she whimpered, followed by a wordless shriek of ecstasy, “there’s something I have to tell you! I’m with child!”


	7. Chapter 7

The room was shrouded in darkness, specters of soft light from the lanterns below in the garden dancing smoothly about Bliss’ bedchamber. She stood alone by the window, a solitary figure with the tip of her thumb timidly pushing against her lower lip as she watched the jollity below with uneasy interest. Sanjay had stolen in silently, if only just to gaze upon her unseen but felt as if he should make his presence known, if he could help to soothe her plainly troubled mind. He cleared his throat gently and she jumped a bit, pulling her wrap tighter around her voluptuous curves. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you enter,” she offered him a small smile.

“No, it is I who should apologize,” he bowed, “I have interrupted your thoughts. I can leave...”

“No, stay,” and the gentle pleading in her words were like commands to his smitten heart. “Stay with me.”

“What would you have me do?” he asked, his brow creasing in concern, in adoration for this distressed young woman he loved so dearly. “Anything, I will do anything. You have only to request it of me!”

“Do not, please,” she wept. “You know why I must do these things that I have chosen. I will never be free of my father until I marry and he would never allow a union such as ours. I prayed that you would not come with him, that I would not have to see you when I do this!”

“And I will never be free of you,” he declared, taking her hesitant body into the circle of his fervent embrace, “no matter how many continents I cross! Do you not wonder why I yield, relinquish my will to the Colonel? Because I am servant to you; wherever you go, whatever you do, I am there. My family is affluent, we are of a very high caste and have always dealt with the British as peers; I was taught by English tutors, the finest, and could enter any trade I desired. Any woman was available to me to make my wife. And yet I bow to you for I am your willing slave. From the moment I saw you, the very moment you smiled at me. Bliss, I love you.”

“Papa, he knows of all this,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “He knows of us, of what we have engaged in, and he only tolerates it because he knows that I understand it is forbidden. He would take you away from me and I could not bear it...”

“He could never!” he answered vehemently. “Not with all of His Majesty’s armed forces could he do this! You must escape from him, my Bliss; he will destroy you if you do not and that I could not watch. Major Cotard, he would make you happy. I would make your life paradise, my love!”

“You deserve so much more than me, Sanjay,” she told him, tasting her own salty tears as he kissed her. “I am a bore, nothing but fluttering lashes and silly, meaningless chattering. The sparkle without the gem. I am nothing without papa...”

“These are things he has told you, things he has instilled in you to keep you subservient to him! It is exactly why you must flee him!”

“I’m afraid, Sanjay,” she profess gazing into the dark, rippling pools of his eyes, running her fingertips along the glossy curls framing his face, the long queue that fell smartly down his back. “My love, my soul,” she told him, placing her hand across his jaw, “I am so afraid.”

“You need not be anymore, not with me at your side,” he affirmed passionately. “He will never hurt you so long as I am here. Say it, Bliss, say you are mine.”

“Forever! You--you...steady me,” she abandoned herself and her reservations as she threw her arms around him fiercely, kissing him enthusiastically and eagerly. He swept her off of her feet and carried her towards the bed, his tender touch parting the folds of her muslin and lace wrap as he placed her upon the white sheets. His angel, his spirit, he would worship her until the sun touched rosy dawn fingers to the sky and she would never know adoration such as he was fervent to impart again, not without him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Edmund sat on the uncomfortable loveseat amidst the bookcases in his tiny personal library, his head in one hand, a decanter of his strongest whiskey in the other; he’d forgone a glass from the start. It was what he typically used the space for, private drinking, and now seemed as good a time as any. “Say something,” Hen urged as she twirled the mass of her blonde tresses into a bun at the crown of her head. He just shook his head. “That was not the way I wanted for you to find out.”

That elicited a scoff as he rubbed his eye wearily. “Gawd, I certainly hope not! Are--” he voice caught in his throat, “are you sure? We’ve had these mistakes before...”

“Three days, Edmund,” she told him, “that’s the latest I’ve ever been in the past. It’s been three weeks!”

“How?” he asked. “How did this happen?” He was frantically trying to grasp at the concept--or should he say conception?--of it all, the gravity of the situation. He groping around in the dark, admittedly not the best of metaphors! Despite the magnitude of the circumstances, or perchance because of it, he felt...lightheaded.

“If I really need to explain that to you at this point...”

“I mean,” he retorted peevishly, “we’re always so cautious.”

“If by cautious you mean pulling out when you remember...” she jeered. “I just...didn’t know when to tell you, what with the clamor over Bliss and your father returning to Wormwood, it just always seemed like the wrong time. I know!” she added defensively off of his pointed glare. “I know this wasn’t the right time! It just kind of...tripped out, in the heat of the moment, as it were.” He didn’t answer. “You think this is easy for me? Do you? I’ve already began an inquiry into...further employment. The Jameson house has a position available...”

Edmund had leapt to his feet and was across the small room in one fraught bound. He took her by the shoulders roughly and turned her to him, the shimmering of tears at the edges of her eyes breaking his own black heart. “You--You’re not talking of leaving?” As the words had come from her mouth, only then had he realized the implications. He was desperate, his chest seizing in fear of losing her, of losing their baby.

“What other choice is there, Edmund?” she asked him, placing a hand upon her stomach. “I do not want to lose this child. Your father...”

“Can bloody well go to hell where this is concerned!” Edmund declared fervently, taking her face in his hands and kissing her ardently, devotedly. “You--and our baby, my baby,” he said in wonder, cupping her belly as he got to his knees to kiss her there, “--you belong here! I won’t let you go! I’m entirely too fond of you!”

She let out a sob, putting a fist to her mouth to smother the sound, comprehending the meaning behind what he was endeavoring to articulate; it was the closest he had ever come to declaring his love for her, in his own unique way, of course. Now this left her in a sort of a quandary, torn between what she yearned for and what was for the best. The perfect servant, after all, always thought of her duty above all else...

“I didn’t...hurt it--you--before, when we...Did I?” he asked, uncertain, reassured as she shook her head, her hair tumbling right back down, overflowing around her partially exposed white shoulders and breast. “Thank God for that! It simply wouldn’t do considering what I intend on doing next.”

“Edmund, what are you doing down there?”

“What can I say?” he smirked, taking her hand as he worked his signet ring off of his pinky finger. “Well,“ he considered the gold object, “Hennie, you’re shaking; maybe you’re the one who should be the one take a seat. I have an...interesting proposition for you to consider...”

“Edmund, how could either of us live like that?”

“Just listen, please...”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Well, they’ll be talking all right,” Dorothea laughed, stretching serenely her arms above her head and sighing. “Just like papa wanted. Well maybe not just like papa wanted. I don’t think ‘copulation in every accessible room’ was foremost on his mind though he’s certainly not doing anything to dissuade it with his own behavior, is he? Ordinarily it’s only Edmund seeking to copulate in every available room,” she giggled.

The parlor was dark save for the dim, seductive flicker of the colored lanterns lining the gardens. Andre Cotard was haloed by the iridescent light, every muscle of his sinewy figure emphasized through his snug costume. She admired him languorously, aware all the time of his dark eyes wandering her body, burning her skin with his hungry gaze. And yet, he tried not to molest her, to take advantage of their isolated and secret hiding spot and make love to her. He seemed just as engaged by her words, stimulated by their talk, as he would her touch. For now.

“How did you know me in my costume?” he smiled in the darkness, a radiant if somewhat swaggering thing. “When you first saw me, I could tell from your eyes. Just as I knew you from a glance.”

“Maybe it was the way you carried yourself,” she suggested slyly. “You are rather difficult to miss and I reckon no other gentleman present is nearly as handsome as you. You are always so confident, perhaps you remind me a bit of Don Giovanni!” she laughed engagingly. “Papa told me that was who you intended to dress as,“ she explained off of his stunned look. “I didn’t just guess.”

“Edmund took me to the opera the last we were in London, which was some time ago, as you could guess. I originally saw a performance with my mama when I was but a babe. She loved the theater, she had a regular box at the opera house and I can still recall her excitement! It’s peculiar: I cannot recollect its appearance but I remember the scent of perfumes and lavender powder, the feel of her silks, her smile. And I remember the music! Oh, how I was enthralled by it even at my lack of years!”

“Do you like the opera?” he queried, sitting beside her upon the cushioned couch. “The music, it is so passionate, non? It rouses the blood.”

“It does and I adore it!” she said, leaning into the strapping breadth and heat of his body. “It is so very romantic, and so tragic. Why is it, do you think, that the faithful lovers always must part at the end, whether it be by misfortune or death? It’s a daft convention of amorous invention, is it not? Though I suppose I really cannot call Shakespeare daft though he was so entirely fond of the tragedy. I’m a admirer of exultant endings, really, though I have found that it is not only in fiction that heartbreak has its domain.”

“Ma chere, you are so sad,” he murmured softly, warmly stroking her jaw with the backs of his long fingers, caressing her chin with their tips. “If I could, I would take it all from you, all of your melancholia.”

“Is that how you see me?” Dorothea asked him quietly, reluctant to look him in the eye, afraid of what she might see there. Pity, denigrating sympathy. But she saw only compassion, esteem. Her voice was so small as she said, “Am I a tragic character, deserving of your mercy?”

“Non, mon amour,” he told her with loving certainty, a smile touching the sensuous curve of his luscious mouth. “Not tragic. It distresses me, to know you to be so spirited, so alive. You appreciate fine art; you are so dynamic in expressing your beliefs and your desire for life. That is what makes me love you as I do! But I see how your sadness weighs upon you and it wounds me.”

“What would you have me do?” she inquired. “Who would you have me be?”

“None other than yourself,” he brushed her hair from her shoulder and pressed his hungry kiss to her neck. He reveled in the shiver that ran up her spine and raised goose flesh along her scrumptious skin. “That magnificent woman I know you are, that I care for so dearly.”

“You do not know who I am,” she scoffed dismissively.

He grinned. “Better than you comprehend. I love you,” he whispered in her ear, tugging upon the lobe with the edge of his precise teeth. “I want nothing more than to make you content, joyful. But I think the real question, ma chere, is what is it you want? That is what is truly essential.”

“Do not ask me that while my judgment seems to be...weakened at the moment,” she laughed nervously as Andre’s hand, his wicked fingers, fondled the rising and falling mounds of creamy flesh nearly tumbling over the bustline of her bodice. Unexpectedly and resolutely, his eager touch plunged beneath the fabric to seize one supple globe. She gasped loudly and made to stand straight away, but he crossed a strong arm over her belly, leaning his hand onto the other side of the sofa and trapping her there.

“What are you so afraid of?” he said smoothly. “Me? You know you could tell me anything.”

“I want you, Andre, all right?” she sniffled, giving his shoulder a bit of an angry punch with the ball of her fist, displeased with herself for having such feelings let alone giving voice to them and furious with him for coaxing it out of her with such unerring charisma. “That’s what you want to hear, is it not? But I cannot follow on such emotions, not now, and I cannot really explain it to you so might’nt you talk of this with me in the morn?”

“And what will change, hmm?” There was just a hint of mirth in his eyes and she got the distinct impression of a grinning cat playing with its delicate prey before moving in for the kill. “Perhaps tomorrow it will be a different disguise that you wear, another mask, but it will still be you. And I love you.”

She wanted to believe, to tell herself, he was speaking to Bliss, that she would be betraying her beloved sister if she were to allow anything to happen. That was the rational part of her mind, the one ruled by the logical mistress of the household, wearing her frumpy frocks and only ever receiving chaste kisses from her brother. The other section of her duplicitous mind struggled to inform the first that her wits had now abandoned her and that she was now surrendered to the sensations he was inflicting upon her as his touch slid into her blouse once again, his hot, wet mouth on hers.

He wasn’t talking to Bliss, he wasn’t talking to Dorothea. He was speaking directly to *her*. And as the possibility that they might actually end up making love became all too real, she clung to that. She knew she was playing with fire when she asked him, “What do you want, Andre? Has anyone ever posed you that question before? Passion, loyalty?” she shrugged facetiously. “Security, excitement? Love, sex?”

“You say those things as if they were contradictory,” he chuckled, sliding his hand beneath the waves of her golden brown hair, across the smooth, milky skin of her shoulder to the nape of her neck.

“You can’t have it all,” scoffed Dodie.

“I believed so once as well,” he whispered, his breath scorching her flesh as he lowered his mouth to the hollow of her breastbone. “I was a callow, rash young officer, uninterested in such commitments. I broke a few up myself, as a matter of fact. You don’t trust in it anymore, love?”

“I didn’t think so,” she replied, shyly gazing into his eyes before they began to close gently and a gentle moan escaped her parted lips as his fingertips found her taut nipple, caressing the stiff nub luxuriously. “Really,” she sighed, shaking her head so that the brass of her mask clinked delicately, “we shouldn’t...” The protest died away as his tongue penetrated the luscious warm refuge of her mouth.

The weight of his brawny body smothered her own as he settled atop her, his hips pushing demandingly into her quivering thighs until they relented, falling apart as he settled between then. She could feel his pounding need, the steel of his cock, nestle into the yielding cradle of her soft womanhood through the layers of bothersome clothing. A sudden apprehension seized her: could she, would she, if he so commanded it of her? Oh God, he’d know! “Andre, wait!” she gasped hastily. Placing her hands upon his broad chest, she kept him at a comfortable distance above her as she slid down across the sofa’s cushions, against his muscular chest to his perfectly slim but not slender waist.

“Non, ma chere, non!” he objected but made no definitive move to stop her as she worked the fastenings of his breeches. They were so tight, she could already see the stunning outline of his glorious cockstand bulging, straining within the fabric. Damn costume; it looked lovely but certainly took more time than necessary to remove given both of their growing exigency. The glorious thing nearly burst out of its own accord. Goodness! He was much...larger than she had imagined, splendid in its fully erect condition. He was all around warm brown skin, in some places like copper, in others like glistening honey furred with thick black down.

“Mon amour,” he rasped huskily, burying his face in the pillow directly below him. “Taste me. I want to be inside of you.” Almost wild with lust for him, intoxicated by the rich, strong smell of his masculinity, she needed no urging. She licked the droplets of gathering wetness at the crown of his engorged shaft, the translucent dew of his need, before wrapping her lips about the sumptuously plump head. She suckled the tangy flesh as if he were the most mouth-watering sweet meat she had ever sampled until she heard his panting breaths became savage grunts; she could tell by the tightening of his sinew he was restraining his thighs from shoving as impulse impelled.

She reached around to grasp his firm buttocks, kneading them as she encouraged that movement as she swallowed with wicked glee inch by inch of his swollen prick, as much as she could until he nuzzled the back of her throat. He gritted his teeth, crying out as he let go his control and plunged into her. She gagged slightly as he glided into her gullet, plundering her as only he could at the moment. She was surprised at how right it felt, as if he was made to fit effortlessly inside of her. She sucked noisily, accepting each thrust with submissive obedience even as she found her own rhythm of pleasure, satisfying him as well as herself in ways never even dreamt of.

She dug her fingernails into his hip bones, lashing the rigid column of his sex with her tongue in succulent, swirling slurps as he rammed her again and again. With a trembling hand, she tenderly cupped the precious pendulous sac at the base of his rampaging cock, oh so softly clutching the splendidly smooth, veined skin as she rolled the cherished stones within. It tensed within her grasp and she could tell that his rapture was dangerously imminent.

Without thought, she shoved her hand into the billowing fabric of her skirt, pushing it aside as she sought out the place between her own legs to stroke the sensitive, shivering bud within the fleshy lips of her slick womanhood. The rocking of his hips became rigid as he felt the eruption within his belly, the deluge of the heated explosion overflowing until he felt it surge from him, flooding into her mouth. She drank him down voraciously, making his climax all the more rigorous, letting loose a feral growl.

It is true that a lesser man would have succumb to the enchanting languor and lethargy that spread throughout his gratified body as all pressure was released in waves of bliss. That, he told himself with an almost predatory grin, was what a mere Englishman would have done.

Resting upon his side and opening a lazy eye to gaze down on his beloved, he perceived the frantic dance of her fingers betwixt her thighs as she sought her own fulfillment. Ever a man of action, he gathered the strength left within his tremulous frame and heaved her back into proper position upon the chaise whilst he himself slithered down it, his mouth devouring her through the costume’s diaphanous material. Pushing aside the rolling layers of her skirt, using her own hand to guide him, he replaced her eager digits with his greedy lips and tongue. He was a gentleman after all and believed wholeheartedly in returning such a scrumptious favor.

He adored the primal scent of a woman’s arousal, the clean and brackish taste of a ripe cunny but none more so than that of the woman he loved. He supped upon the nectar that flooded her chalice, glutting himself on the flavor of his beloved’s yearning. He nursed the little morsel that jutted proudly from the satin folds until she was arching off of the divan, practically weeping with pleasure. Oh, how he could gorge himself on her forever! He had not felt so clumsy, so inelegant in his carnal appetites and deeds since he was a reckless, youthful lad discovering the authority, influence and dominance he could bring to bear upon the opposite sex.

He was not silent in the enjoyment he was receiving from the endeavor, his moans of delectation mingling with her sobs of ecstasy just as his saliva mingled with her hot juices. When she was on the precipice of her breaking point, he thrust his tongue into her fountainhead, lapping up her torrent of sap as it poured from its source. She shook with the intensity of her peak as he engulfed her with sinful relish. From the very top of her head, where her hair seemed to be standing on edge, to the arch of her pointed toes, she trembled in thrill and elation. At the very moment of soaring pleasure, the garden door opened once again.

“In use!” they both roared, her voice shrieking with orgasm, his muffled somewhat.

The door closed promptly.

When the breakers of pure joy washing over her persistently slowed to ripples, she could feel him brushing a few stray tresses of her curled auburn hair from the perspiration upon her cheeks, the dampness of her lips. He was kissing her, murmuring hoarsely in French. She settled into his arms, a smile upon her mouth as she felt his arms clasp her lovingly. She drifted into sweet slumber in his embrace, bathed in moonlight and the blush of the garden lanterns as the affair raged on.

He held her for some time, brushing his fingers through her locks, gazing upon her in veneration until the hour grew late and the sounds of the party began to die down. It was then he lifted her into his secure hold and carried her off to the bedchambers. He paused for a instant outside Bliss’ door, hearing nothing within, before sidestepping it and entering Dodie’s rooms. He laid her out upon the bed removing her mask and placing his lips upon each delicate eyelid.

“Goodnight, ma Dorothea.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Bliss, I cannot marry you!”

Those were not the first words Major Andre Cotard planned on greeting his intended wife with on the morn following the greatest engagement gala Kingsharrow had e’er seen. But they came from him nonetheless almost unbidden upon seeing the radiant young woman stroll tranquilly into the breakfast room. She was absolutely luminous as she paused in a ray of buttery sunlight, the glow catching in her glossy cascade of golden brown curls. She wore a yellow morning gown that far from making her complexion sallow, complemented her perfectly, made her shine. For all of her beauty, all of her delicate splendor, Andre wished now only to gaze upon his Dorothea and that exquisite attractiveness only she possessed, a refined prettiness that both took his breath away and aroused him like now other.

A gasp escaped her lusciously full lips, raising a dainty gloved hand to her mouth as he heard himself speak the words aloud. No pleasant salutations, no amiable chitchat; just the cold, hard truth of the matter spoken within moments of her entering the small, warm space. He braced himself for the worst of it: tears, accusations. Did he deserve any less? The guilt was overwhelming, especially as he knew it was well earned on his behalf. Though he knew in his heart that he had never truly loved Bliss the way he believed he should, the way he had so desired to, he had never given her any impression as to the nature of his feelings. He was a bastard. He warranted a slap. A hard one.

Instead, and much to his shock and astonishment, she laughed, her smile extending to the corners of her large, elfish eyes. “I cannot marry you either, Andre!” she replied and Andre might have been mistaken but he thought he had heard immense relief in her tone. She threw herself into his arms, nearly crying in elation. “I didn’t know how to tell you! Oh, you have made me so very happy! Andre, I am in love with someone else.”

“*I* am in love with someone else,” chuckled Andre, still reeling with surprise. “But, dearest, I must confess, I have been false. Not that it was my intention to be so; I would never hurt you, Bliss. I am humbled in my remorse. Last night...”

“Shhh,” she grinned, placing two fingers upon his lips to silence him. “You need not profess anything, darling, for it is I who have been untrue. From the beginning I have cherished another and yet, to please my father, I would not allow it to be. Until last night--that was the purpose of the charade, after all, was it not? Even for those of us whom believed ourselves to be unwitting participants in a silly game! I could bear it no longer! I endeavored to convince myself that it was you who was my truest love and I did...I do love you! But I cannot live a lie!”

“Nor would I want you too!” asserted Andre. “Nor would I want to! Bliss, I must admit to being somewhat confused but tremendously gladdened!” He kissed her softly, running his thumb along her joyfully flushed cheek. “This man you are infatuated with, I can only wish you both all the happiness in the world! And if he does not treat you honorably, you will warn him that he will have me to contend with?” She nodded, unshed tears sparkling at the edges of her bright eyes. All at once, his eyes went to her stomach, his throat going dry. “But...but what if...?” He couldn’t seem to get the words out, tripping over his tongue; his hand trembled as he placed it against her belly.

She knitted her brow at first, pouting sweetly as she tried to understand his meaning. “Oh!” she exclaimed, glancing at where his hand was resting. “Oh! Andre, I am not with child, if that was your impression! Was it my sickness? That was nothing more than nerves!” He looked less than reassured until she grinned at him, giggling, as she confessed, “Andre, my courses have come today. I am not pregnant!”

“That is wonderful!” he sighed, and then quickly amended, “Not that I wouldn’t, that I was frightened...” He chuckled, heaving a sigh of reprieve as he shook his head.

“Oh, I have to tell him,” she gasped suddenly, standing on the tips of her toes in order to plant a kiss upon his nose. “Thank you, Andre! And do be happy!” She flew from his arms in a swirl of golden muslin like a butterfly and blew him another kiss from the doorway before disappearing behind it. His head was spinning, his world lurching upon it axis; he groped for a chair and sat, trying desperately to absorb what had just occurred. Dodie, he had to speak with his magnificent Dorothea! She was not up and about as of yet; this he knew for he had inquired it of Rogers perhaps ten times since he himself had risen. He would just have to be patient.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dorothea sighed lightly as she awoke, stretching languorously as she brushed her hair from her face, running her fingers through it as she moaned agreeably, still feeling the wetness between her thighs, the delightful heat where his mouth had been. At first, she was a bit disoriented as she slowly opened her eyes, burying her face in her pillow with a cross groan, the brilliant light of day stinging her sight. Initially, she had imagined that she had still felt his arms around her, holding her, waiting for her to wake from her slumber. She might have only dozed for an hour maybe two.

But, no. The forenoon sun told her otherwise and, gradually, she became aware of her surroundings. Her bedroom, the mattress beneath her and the place near her hip wear it took a slight dip; she’d get around to asking Hen to help her tighten the ropes one day. The table beside her bed came into vision and, as if she were on the outside staring back at herself, the empty mask she had worn last night resting upon it. She bolted upright, hearing the door open and close softly and the gentle footfalls of the maid’s slippers upon the worn rugs. Oh, Andre! She thought of him as she touched her exposed face, realizing her skin was now an unsightly mixture of sweat, a bit of drool and theatrical make-ups.

“Hen, prepare the wash hand stand, I’ll need a new soap ball if you could...” She nearly squealed when she looked towards the curved footboard of her sleigh bed and saw Mrs. Joyce standing there in her familiar and discreet maid‘s stead, a disapproving glare on her scowling face. Dorothea would have never believed it possible, as tightly as the older servant’s bun was tied back, that her brow could still be so furrowed. “Mrs. Joyce, I’m--I am sorry. I expected Hen...”

“Very well, mum,” answered Joycie flatly, her thin lips almost bloodless in a permanent glower. She held her arm out stiffly, an untidy envelope in her hand, and fastidiously smoothed down her unflatteringly plain black frock after her mistress took the letter from her. “I was instructed by your brother to give you this, mum. Shall I lay out your day frock, Mrs. Grieve?”

“Good God, not the brown one, please, Mrs. Joyce,” insisted Dorothea. “That color, it looks as if someone’s used it to clean the chamber pots! If you would be so kind, I will be wearing my blue garden dress.” The prim housekeeper was about to protest when Dodie affirmed, “IF you would be so kind, Mrs. Joyce.” Her terse timbre begged no disagreement. Loyal to the Colonel to the last, Dodie thought as she coldly watched the woman bow precisely, casting a judgmental frown at her mistress’ attire as she turned to the clothespress. Love was a bizarre thing, she considered, which brought her thoughts squarely back to Andre.

She dressed quickly as she could, settling for a rather dull style for her hair as Mrs. Joyce had a tendency to tut and cluck her tongue whenever Dodie made a choice the older woman considered to be frivolous. She breathed a heavy sigh of respite when she could finally escape her chamber, tucking Edmund’s letter into her petticoat’s pouch through the slit in her skirt. Running into Sanderson as she attempted to enter the first floor parlor; he informed her that the Colonel was presently entertaining a few of the festivities' more prominent attendees--and likely ailing from inebriation or worse, she thought cunningly--in the room at the moment. She was thankful to see Rogers as she descended the stair.

“Oh, Rogers,” she smiled, “I was so worried there wasn’t a friendly face left in the entire of Kingsharrow. I woke with the gargoyle lurching over me, the ghoul was skulking about the parlor with the madman and his associates, probably in his glory! Where on earth has Hen gotten herself off to?”

“Forgive me, mum,” Rogers responded, clearing his throat. “Have you not gotten the note Master Edmund left for you?”

“The letter? Edmund’s?” chuckled Dodie, not completely comprehending as she removed the forgotten object from her pocket. “But what does it have to do with Hen?” she asked, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. Rogers looking distinctly awkward as he straightened his shoulders several times, a-hemming towards the faintly crumpled envelope in her grasp.

“What...?” Dodie wondered aloud as she broke the seal upon the note and removed the hastily written message. Her expression changed rapidly from one of mild confusion to jubilant bewilderment. “Gretna Green, with Hen? They’re...” She turned the letter over as if the paper would yield some additional clue and reread the letter over and again. “Why, this is wonderful news!” He’d done it, the recognition emerged in her, he’d finally broken away from their father, directly disobeyed him. “Does the old monster know yet?” she inquired urgently.

“He discovered the truth this morning, mum,” Rogers answered gravely. “He was raving like a lunatic, mum; I think the only reason he calmed himself was for the sake of his valued guests.” He spoke the last two words with obvious contempt. “Miss Bliss has not yet informed him that she has called of the wedding off; we were anxious that he might...”

“‘Called the wedding off?’” Dorothea nearly yelped. Her stomach was doing turns, her mind screaming in dismay: she’s found out, she’s found out and her heart is broken for it! Oh, how could she have done such a thing to her dearest sister, how could she have betrayed her so deeply. She was wrong in accusing Edmund of taking advantage of Bliss for she had done nothing less herself; considerably more, in point of fact! “What have I done?” she asked rhetorically, cold, fearful tears blurring her vision. She ignored Rogers, who called after her in distress over the condition she was in, as she rushed towards the patio, where Bliss liked to take her breakfast when the parlor was in use. She avoided the breakfast room; Rogers informed her that he would be there.

“Oh, Sissy,” she cried, letting loose a deluge of teardrops as she flung herself into Bliss’ lap, wrapping her arms about her sister’s slender waist. She seemed unaware of Sanjay’s presence as she sobbed into Bliss’ soft frock. “Forgive me, please! I would never, ever deliberately hurt you. You are more important to me than...” She looked up into her sister’s lovely face and found only a blank countenance of astonishment as she blinked in surprise, her teacup suspended in midair as if frozen in time.

“Dodie,” she said calmly at last, placing her cup delicately upon the table as she smoothed her gown, “my sweet, my dearest! You have never wounded me! You give me such strength, such love; you have given me the courage to admit finally my truest yet most deeply hidden emotions. Those for Sanjay.” She glanced at the man, serenely composed in the forenoon air, dressed in white with his jet black hair gathered into an orderly queue, and smiled almost shyly.

“But...but,” Dodie sputtered, wiping her nose across her sleeve in an unseemly fashion, “Andre--Major Cotard--last night, he and I...I knew, I knew of your secret heart but it was wrong of me. I acted only on in regard to my own feeling...”

“Andre and...you?” Bliss’s elegantly arched eyebrow was raised almost to her hairline. “Oh Dodie, he did not want to go through with the nuptials either! Are you the one that he loves? Oh, tell me that you love him as well! That will be too, too perfect!”

Dorothea stood, her knees dirty and cold from kneeling against the cold stone ground. Remnants of the merrymaking evident all around her in the form of broken champagne glasses, torn bits of streamers and, every now and again, something unmentionable such as a stocking or a garter. The panto elephant still stood, looking at her with its ridiculous jeweled eyes. She could do nothing but laugh. “Love? He...used that word? He...feels that way about me?”

Bliss took her hand gently, giving it a brisk rub. “I think perhaps you should speak to him, he seemed...overjoyed. As am I, my darling! Though if you ever decide you are in truth in love with Sanjay and play such deceptions in order to snare him from me, I will plot my revenge for years.”

“I will not be so easily seduced,“ Sanjay promised with a grin, placing his hand over his heart.

Bliss looked to him fondly as she stretched her arm across the table’s length, clasping hands with him. “Now, go! Shoo!” she told her sister. “I believe he is awaiting you in the breakfast room.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was a bit early to be sitting as he was, sipping sweet port and nibbling upon a pastry of some sort, Major Andre Cotard contemplated as he crossed his legs and stared out the picture window towards the Fulloch. The day was turning out to be stunning, the gilt rays of the sun touching the rolling fields and moors like a soothing shower of light. The breeze was fresh and pleasant with a taste of the lush greenery on it as it drifted in through the opened panes.

Only one thing would make the complete scene perfect: Dorothea.

His arms ached to hold her, his lips throbbed to kiss her in all of those delicious private places, to satisfy her--and himself upon her--as he had last night. Never had he known such a rapturous agony as her mouth upon his cock, urging him on a she relished in his maleness. Mon Dieu, but his groin was afire merely thinking on it! He understood, all of those things he very nearly experienced when he was Bliss, all of those emotions he didn’t even realize he feigned so eager was he to feel them, he could now understand for he felt the real thing for the very first time! “Dorothea.” He hadn’t even been aware he had spoken the name aloud until he received a response.

“Andre,” she breathed. He turned to find her, as if stepping from his daydream, leisurely entering the breakfast room. “I love you as well,” she said, smiling tentatively at first and then more surely.

She cried out in delight when, in one swift movement, he stood and swept her up into his embrace, covering her mouth with hungry kisses as his large hands roamed her entire body, from the curve of her shoulders to the abundant swell of her delectable breasts to her sincere, round face. “Mon amour, my luscious sweet, you have been crying,” he said, his forehead folding in concern as he ran his thumbs across her cheeks. “I would never make you cry, non?”

“No!” she insisted, beaming at him and returning his kisses. “Never! Just don’t stop holding me, ever!” she laughed. Her feet might as well have never touched the ground again as he enfold her waist within his strong arms and lifted her so he could rest his cheek next to hers; she was lost in fantasy made real, in happy endings and heroic romances. “When did you know? Last night, how long did you know? From the start, wasn‘t it? You so much as confessed!”

“Did you not see it in my eyes, ma chere?” he grinned playfully, mischievously.

“Why did you not reveal me?” she chastised teasingly, giving him a good-humored pinch.

“You revealed yourself, ma belle, to me,” he told her tenderly. “For me.” He raised her hand to his mouth, the remnants of his shaved whiskers rasping her skin as he pressed his lips against her knuckles, his dark eyes boring into her. “When I made love to you, I was making love to my most cherished, mon coeur. Well, that and that costume was, in truth,” he licked his lips lecherously, “utterly enticing...”

“Wicked, wanton man!” she blushed a most alluring shade of cherry pink, aware from the force and ardor of his intense stare that he was only partly joking. “I dreamt all night of the things I wanted you to do to me,” she confessed, her blush increasing timidly. “One situation involved...an opera box.”

A fiendish smirk spread across his roguish jaw. “When we are married...” he sighed blissfully, and the entire world came crashing down around her in shattered shards of broken glass and dreams. She grew rigid in his hold, unresponsive, and he frowned as she slowly pulled away. “What is it, ma chere? What is wrong?”

“Do you not know then?” she asked, her voice was a mere whisper, tremulous and fragile. “Andre, I cannot marry you. I am already married.”

“Bliss told me,” he shook his head, not comprehending her sudden distance. “You are widowed...”

“No, Andre, no,” and the tears threatened to start afresh. “Christopher Martin is still very much alive. He abandoned me the very night of our wedding. There was a time, you see, when my papa favored me, never quite as much as Bliss but he treated me well enough. I did not recognize at the time that he sought only to make a good match, to find me a rich husband of standing so he may further himself.

“Christopher Martin lied to us all, he is exceedingly good at that. He claimed to be an heir to a sizable fortune and his family name was not unheard of. Papa promised him anything, everything, including a very large dower, an exaggeratedly generous settlement. He took everything, from me, from us. I was...so young, nearly sixteen, and so in love, I could never believe that he would deceive me so. Whenever we anticipate ourselves free of him, he resurfaces with some gambling or whoring debt he wants cleared up with a fortune we no longer possess. The price for him is his silence; to avoid scandal, my papa struck a deal with Christopher Martin that indeed we would pretend that I am widowed and not discarded.

“Papa hates me for it as much as he despises Edmund because he could never be the ideal soldier or son he longed for. And you see, this is why he took to you, you were everything he wanted: a perfect son and you would give him a perfect heir. I am sorry if that is hurtful for me to say but that is the honesty of the matter, as much as I wish it weren’t so.”

Slowly, Andre sank back into his chair, absorbing with difficulty what he’d just been told. Dorothea watched him anxiously, her nervous hands worrying the muslin of her skirt, awaiting his eventual reaction. In that moment, in that excruciatingly prolonged moment, life seemed intolerably unjust and she raged with envy at her siblings; though it would be challenging and strenuous for them, they nonetheless had the option to follow their hearts open to them. Why? Why was she always the one left behind? Had she accepted the role for so long that the Fates themselves placed her within it? “I could be your lover,” she burst out, not being able to bear the irresolute remoteness between them any longer.

He gazed up at her, still clearly overcome as her words took root in his mind. His first, instinctive reaction was a stanch no; he would not, could not, put her in that position in society, even if it meant that they could be together. He shook his head, even as his heart warred with the decision, pleading with him to give in, to allow himself to sink into her softness, burrow into her until he could no longer discern the separation of their intellect or bodies, and never would he fret about or want for anything ever again. She kneeled at his feet, taking his vast hands, extensive fingers, between hers.

“Hear me out,” she entreated. “We can go...somewhere no one knows us, you and I!” She bowed her head and kissed those delightfully brown, roughly masculine fingers, sucking slightly upon the tips, letting them linger between her sumptuous lips. A silent groan escaped his throat. “Andre, I would be yours, wholly, entirely! More devoted than wife, more...thrilling than mistress. Andre,” she said bashfully, “it wouldn’t be like that. I have never lain with a man, not to do anything save the admittedly rollicking activities we engaged in last night! You--you would be my first. My only!” she added emphatically.

“Y-you m-mean...” he managed to stammer out, one astonishing revelation coming at him after the other in rapid succession. He was overcome by emotion that she was offering herself to him so decisively what her own husband had not taken it in fifteen-odd years of marriage, a gift as precious as her delicate maidenhood. A scheme was forming at the back of his consciousness, one he was not entirely aware of just yet but when it broke upon him, he felt his heart ascend. “You do trust me, do you not, ma chere? That I will always do what is best and that I love you?”

“Yes,” answered Dodie eagerly, her eyes shimmering with moisture. “Forever, Andre, my dearest.” Oh, how tender she was, how acquiescent, soft, willing as she fell into his embrace, kissing so ardently. He could have her now, take what she was submitting to him so innocently, so amorously. He would have liked nothing more than to have seize her in one of the empty bedchambers, his fervent shaft plowing her yielding womanhood and pluck her virgin flower in a blossom of chaste blood. He would lay claim to her with his seed, as man had done to woman since the beginning of time. Oh yes, that was what he would like to do but discipline was of the utmost importance. For the time being.

“Wait,” he ordered with the commanding air of the soldier he was, disentangling himself from her devoted embrace as he stood. “Wait, mon amour, and trust in me.” She shook her head briskly as she watched him--and that fine, muscled arse of his--retreat from the room. And wait she did, until noonday turned to the dim hues of evening, the shadows of twilight.

“Missus,” Rogers voice was barely louder than the soothing hushed sounds of dusk wandering in through the opened window, “begging your pardon for interrupting, but the Colonel is requesting your attendance at supper. He is a bit...distressed over the events of the day.”

“Will...will Major Cotard be present?” she asked, feeling her heart clutch in her chest, fluttering hurriedly against her ribcage like a ensnared bird‘s wings. ‘I trust you, Andre. Forever,’ she thought.

“I...do apologize, mum,” Rogers looked markedly uncomfortable, even adjusting his collar uneasily. “I...thought you knew, Mrs. Grieve, the Major departed Kingsharrow with great hurry this afternoon. He did not even wait to bid the Colonel farewell.” Hot tears tumbled down her cheeks as she wrung her hands, her pulse pounding hotly. Was this what he felt was best? Spare her character, her integrity but deny her love by just...running. Surely he knew she would never willingly let him go. Suddenly, she felt extremely ill. “Mrs. Grieve,” Rogers said sheepishly, “what shall I tell your father?”

What shall he tell him? What shall he tell him?! She wanted to laugh bitterly but even that mirthless sound would not come to her. She stood, smoothing down her dress as she informed him, “You can tell the barmy old sod that he can get stuffed!” With that she stamped out of the room and ran to her own chambers where she could, alone, let go of her restraint and sob into her pillow. Bliss came to join her after the meal was over but said nothing; she only held her sister while she wept, cursing the day she ever met Major Andre Cotard.


	9. Chapter 9

“That is him?” Andre Cotard asked curtly, gazing across the busy parlor inside the respectable gentleman’s club the French officer found himself in. At a far table near the paneled wall of a drapery adorned corner sat a sandy haired man, his slender face creased and weathered though not entirely unhandsome. His eyes were a stunningly sharp, icy blue and his demeanor that of stone. He wore regimental reds, his rank apparently now that of major, judging from his uniform’s decoration. Edmund nodded coldly. “He’s older than I had pictured,” murmured Andre grimly.

“He was ten years Dodie’s senior when they wed,” Edmund informed him, keeping his aloof stare upon the man. It had been easier to track him down than either man had originally guessed, Cotard having first found his would-be brother-in-law in the hopes that he could aid him in locating and confronting his objective, offer some insight; turns out he was pretty damned on the mark. Scoundrels, Andre supposed, thought alike. It had been a simple matter of following the rascal’s debts to the London nightlife, as well as a few well placed bribes, to find the man here, playing out a hand of whist as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Andre’s hands involuntarily curled into fists as he made his way through the host of happily conversing men, wagering what was probably a month’s worth of lease on officer’s pay on weak hands of their game of choice. Bluffing. Something Andre did not intend to do. Or perhaps some were just using the location as an excuse to overindulge in wine or stronger; it didn’t matter much to Cotard and all passed as if in a haze. “Major Christopher Martin Grieve?” he cleared his throat as he sauntered up with feigned flippancy behind the unsuspecting man.

“That would be me,” he answered in a surprisingly heavy Northern accent, not bothering to cast even a glance at his newly arrived guests. “Don’t recall owing money to a Frog,” he said casually. “You’re not a friend of that damnable Lieutenant Gregory, are y--” He didn’t get to finish his question for, as he turned his head, Cotard rammed his fist into Grieve’s jaw, causing him to fall violently backwards onto the floor, his legs still dangling over his chair. His fellows sitting with him at the table all stood, as did a few others in the room, on the defense, but Grieve waved them down.

“I don’t want a fight! Ah,” he said as the commotion settled back down into a low din and he lifted himself back into his seat, “I get the distinct feeling you are hear on Dorothea’s behalf. And I see from your choice in companions,” he cocked an eyebrow at Edmund as he rubbed his sore chin, “that I am correct. I’m not looking for any trouble. So, what can I do for you fine gentlemen on this lovely evening?”

“I have a solicitor,” Andre replied flatly, “who would very much like to talk with you about the annulment of your marriage.”

“A solicitor? How very posh. The old man certainly didn’t put out for it; you must be a wealthy man. I can see how the geezer likes you, by the size of your purse,” Grieve snorted, “you practically reek of old money. Was this his idea, an annulment? Did he find a way to keep it all hush hush so that his good name won’t be tarnished with scandal? Because that’s what it all comes down to in the end, doesn’t it: his reputation. Must confess that I’ve suspected this would come for some time though I’m not entirely prepared for it. Is she here, Dorothea? Is it possible...Can I see her one last time?”

“Why would you care?” sniffed Edmund disdainfully. “What, you want one last opportunity to break her heart?”

“You haven’t changed much, have you?” laughed Grieve cheerlessly. “Still so involved with yourself. It’s easy, Edmund the sot, isn’t it? When no one ever expects anything of you, you can never let them down, eh? No responsibilities when no one entrusts you with them.”

“As delightful a reunion as this seems,” Andre said brusquely, “and I do hate interrupting, but there is the matter of the woman you took advantage of, the woman you deserted. If it is the money you are still after, I can promise you a more than generous reimbursement...”

“You’ve got it all wrong, mate,” Christopher Martin threw up his arms in surrender. “You seem like a decent enough chap so I’ll be straight with you. I love Dorothea, I have since the day I met her. That’s why I made up all that shite about my great fortune, because I knew it was the only way to get near her with that sod of a father hanging over her like some perverse scavenger. And she loves me. I have tried, I’ve tried to reconcile but that bastard won’t have any of it, never would. Wouldn’t even let me near her last time I called at Kingsharrow, to extort money from him, I’m sure he’s told you.”

“He’s a bloody liar, Cotard,” scoffed Edmund. “Don’t listen to anything the spiteful prat has to say, his woebegone tale of a misunderstood man. It‘s all a fraud to gain your sympathy and delve deeper into your pocket.”

“And you would like to believe that, wouldn’t you?” Grieve sighed. “For you have been just as negligible in assisting your sister as I have. The neither of us have been of much support to her, have we? Leaving her there. I should have taken her away, the moment I had the chance, I should have just grabbed her and...run. You stayed for your own...motives and I left, I left for the money and in fear that he’d have my career in ruins. Oh, yes, I do not deny it; I have cut far into the bastard’s purse over the years. Selfish and stupid, the both of us; no taking that back now. Though my misdeeds, my greed was far worse; at least you never left her.

“Listen, I don’t really care if you believe me or not,” he looked to Andre to be appallingly sincere. “I suppose you must love her for you’ve not come all this way for a broken down old man and his hollow deceptions. Or at least I hope not for her sake because, God knows, we’ve made a right mess of it. I’ll...sign what you want me to, I won’t contest it. But are you sure, can you swear to me, that given the option, she would choose as you desire her to? Because, funny this, but in the end, it’s just another situation she’s being forced into without her knowledge. Am I right?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The opaque, bluish smoke from Edmund’s cigarillo wafted through the carriage window as the driver unhurriedly eased his horse along the cobbles, the lamplight barely permeating the shadow of the lateness of the hour. “Don’t think on it, Andre,” he addressed the man sitting opposite, whose countenance he could not even make out in the gloom though his melancholy deportment was easy enough to read. “He’s a knob!”

Andre thought for a long, hard moment, running his hand along his jaw as he stared out into the starless night. In his hands he held the satchel containing all the papers, all of the legal formalities, that only confirmed in official terms what the years had proven: that Dorothea was unattached. Free would have been such a preposterous word to have used, considering the circumstance with her father. “That does not make him incorrect,” he finally said, his voice a low sigh in the calm air. “Tell me about Colonel Moore.”

“Such a depressing topic,” Edmund chuckled though it was not a merry noise and, perceiving the gravity of Andre’s tone, sighed deeply. “What do you want to know? The day my mother fell, how he just sort of...broke? Like she did, I suppose, only inside, in his mind. I would say that he...coveted her more than loved her, sort of the same manner he takes with Bliss. I have always suspected that, at least early on when she was in the first timid blush of womanhood, the nature of his relationship with my baby sister was not entirely...innocent.” He cast his eyes downwards, ashamed in part at making the accusation and in part at his own neglect if it was true.

He went on, almost frightened of the silence that would come to inhabit that empty lull between his words. “My mother was collateral, an elegant lady among polite company. When she passed on, he threw our fortunes away trying to sustain those pretensions of high association. It was the same with Bliss. I, well, I was defiant by nature and some of my early indiscretions were...iniquitous, to say the least. And then there was Hen; I made it quite clear to my father that I would never give him a legitimate heir as long as he would not recognize her as a suitable prospect. Look, even if what Grieve said was true, he selected this course of action, he abandoned her. Recurrently, for money! Dorothea loves you, of that you can have no doubt.”

“No,” replied Andre soberly, “no doubt whatsoever. Nor have I in my feelings for her. Does he protect Dorothea, with this arrangement he has made with Major Grieve? Does your father shelter her?”

“He thinks only of himself, as ever,” said Edmund quietly. “Guarding his own arse, he is, from the very start so it would seem. He is able to swindle enough wealth with his soft, persuasive talk to live well enough for himself and to pay off a backhander he would not even have if he had he just allowed Dodie her heart’s desire. You now have the authority literally in your grasp to fulfill that yourself. I do not regret the choice I made,” he stated decisively. “Only with Dodie do my regrets lie; I would have wished to have done for her what you have.”

“I know, I know all of this,” Andre coughed. “I only...I was not sure how this matter would resolve itself and I departed Kingsharrow without so much as bidding her farewell. I did not make my intentions clear. Given her...past considerations, I was too vague, I think.”

'You do trust me, do you not, ma chere? That I will always do what is best and that I love you?' He could hear himself speaking the words, could conjure up clearly her emphatic reply. Had Grieve told her something similar? 'Wait, wait and trust in me, mon amour.' That was what he had asked of her but how could he anticipate that in her when he was having doubts, certainly not about the way he felt but as for the state of affairs...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Home, sweet...” Edmund gestured an elaborate flourish as he stepped out of the coach onto the gravel drive at Kingsharrow. “Well, it’s home in any event,” he shrugged, throwing his cigarillo to his feet and stamping it out. “Why on earth bother. You doing all right, sweetheart?” he asked Hen as he helped her down from the transport, her belly grown into a very prominent swell in the past five months. She nodded and he pinched her upon the chin lovingly. “That’s my girl. Both of them, in fact,” he grinned, rubbing her enlarged stomach.

“Boy,” she told him decisively.

Edmund laughed. “A girl, I tell you! With a kick that robust, it has to be; I‘d wager on it! What do you think, Cotard?”

Andre exited the coach and glared at the dark, looming shape of the manor house warily. The sky above was bright though overcast and he could hear the distant complaint of thunder on the horizon. He remembered the first time he had taken in this sight, Dorothea standing upon the antiquated stone steps to greet him whilst he glanced right past her, awaiting his darling Bliss’ emergence. Now, the position was reversed and he would give anything to see Dodie’s smiling face, her silly laughter, waiting to make him welcome.

“Look at you!” Bliss squealed happily as she bounced down onto the drive and embraced Hen, cupping her bulging tummy. “Why, you are practically glowing! Do come inside, all of you before we all get drenched,” she said, regarding the increasingly threatening firmament. “I’ve tea waiting.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“It’s all he does anymore,” clucked Bliss contemptuously, the contents of the tea tray clinking together delicately as she served them. “Sits in mama’s boudoir all day, for all I know all night, just...gaping at her portrait. He’ll speak to it from time to time as if she’s there with him but he will not answer if you endeavor to converse with him. He barely eats. I don’t know what I would have done without Mrs. Joyce; she is the only individual that he will interact with.”

“I always knew Joycie was a soft touch with him,” Edmund grinned rather bitingly, “the sly old slag!”

Andre accepted a dainty, patterned china teacup from Bliss, sighing impatiently, while trying to sustain a pretense of calm. “This is all very well and good,” he cleared his throat, “but I had hoped that Dorothea might be present...”

“Oh, but haven’t I told you?” Bliss gasped, biting at the corner of her lip in a frown. “Oh, dear me! I meant to have done straight away! She’s not here!”

“She chose a daft time to visit market,” Edmund observed, looking towards the tumultuous weather building in the distance.

“No, I mean, she’s not here, not anymore,” Bliss clarified. “She took a position as a nanny to the Jameson household; Lady Audrey’s just had another, have you heard? A darling little boy and Dodie, she could not stay here any longer. Father was such a brute to her after you left! I sent for her as soon as I got word from you of your arrival but I do not know how long it will take her. I’m sorry,” she turned her eyes to Andre specifically, “I should have said. I am sure she will arrive very soon! The inclement conditions might have held her up!”

“Indeed,” was Andre’s short and precise response. He replaced the cup and saucer onto the tray and stood, clasping his hands behind his back as he moved towards the window. The air tasted suddenly very stale in his mouth, stagnant and he longed to breathe deeply the salt of the breeze before the rain came. He excused himself and made his way down to the stables where he found his old mount, his English Jaya, and took her out for a trot past the Fulloch.

The downpour was just beginning with a spray of brackish drizzle when he returned nearly two hours later only to receive the news from Bliss that Dorothea had not materialized just yet. “Pardon me, miss,” Rogers cleared his throat, gathering Andre’s oilskin greatcoat from him, “that’s not entirely true. I did request of Mr. Sanderson to hand the information along, miss. Mrs. Grieve arrived not but an hour ago. I handed her the papers you left in my care for her to see, sir,” he addressed Andre, “and she got this rather queer countenance to her, the like I’ve not seen before. She went all pale and I believe she did didder. She went out onto the moors, sir; she didn’t even take her cloak. I think I saw her heading towards the copse where the Fulloch dips.”

Andre needed to hear no more. He found his long legs beneath him striding along at full pace before he was even consciously aware of the movement, the angry drone of his blood rushing violently in his ears in dismay suppressing the worried calls that came from the manor house. The rain came in furious droplets now, the clouds above bursting into a torrent. He tried to call out but the noise of the deluge swallowed any sound he had made, his heart hammering in his chest. It almost ceased altogether as cold dread seized him, espying the muddy slope where, so long ago, Dorothea’s mother had taken her fatal stumble.

The ground was slick with dense and treacherous mire; the grass tattered and upturned, washed away in uneven streaks. It looked as if a body had fallen or had perhaps purposely hurdled down the small cliff.

“Dorothea!” he shouted, his desperate cry almost smothered by a thunderous clap overhead.

“Andre,” a very tiny response could be heard over the roar of the rainfall. “Andre, help, I’m down here!” Frantically, he got to he knees and edged his way to the verge carefully. He gasped a sigh of relief when he spotted Dorothea more or less safe and most definitely alive at the bottom of the precipice, seated along the turbulent bank of the Fulloch. “It’s my ankle, Andre! I’ve done it an injury! I can’t get back up!”

Without thought, Andre began his cautious descent, climbing down along the perilously slippery embankment until he reached her. They embraced as if they were compelled towards each other. “I need to get you out of here,” he told her, kissing her upon the forehead before lifting her into his arms, folding her in his secure hold. She clung to him fiercely, burying her face in his sodden jacket. The furious precipitation assisted in washing away most of the mud from their clothes but also in saturating them down to the bone.

“Upstairs!” Bliss cried out when Cotard came stomping into the great hall clutching to the most precious of all his passions, Dorothea’s body quavering with the shock of the late summer chill against her rain soaked body. Hen joined them, staggered at Bliss’ command of the situation as they rushed up the stair, requesting of Rogers to get a fire going in the bedchambers even as she implored Sanderson for warm blankets and a few dry towels. “Broth!” the younger Moore sister declared upon beholding her affianced standing idly in the hallway, snapping her fingers to hurry him on his way.

“As my lady commands, so shall it be done,” Sanjay smiled, casting a concerned glance in Dorothea’s direction. The entire household seemed to be astir with the hustle and bustle, involved, fretful over the unfortunate incident. Only two were missing, the Colonel and Joycie, which was all for the best in any case.

Dodie had started to recover her wits by the time they reached her bedroom, protesting, “It’s only just my foot! I did it a bad turn when I took a tumble, really there’s no need for all this fuss! I haven’t even a chill; it is the middle of summer! It’s just a bit of a shiver; I must have been more...distressed than I had thought.” Andre placed her gently upon the bed and knelt before her, thoughts of propriety abandoning him as he shoved her skirts up above her knee and, with care, slid off her boot and sagging stocking. She bit off a curse as he tested her ankle, pressing lightly her sensitive flesh.

“Not broken,” he surmised, “though you have twisted it very seriously.” He gazed up at her and immediately felt an exquisite warmth seep into his wringing limbs. Her dress was wrinkled and clinging revealingly to her superb curves, those deliciously soft arches his fingers longed to roam. She was stunning, even as unruly, disobedient strands of her moist hair stuck like vines to her oval face and pale, freckled neck. That pink bow of a mouth was smiling at him and he was obliged to lean forward and steal a kiss from it. “You are trembling,” he frowned, his steadying hands resting on her round shoulders.

“I am!” Dodie said with a truly joyous laugh. She framed his face with her hands and drew it to hers for one more kiss and then another. “The papers, Rogers showed them to me! Oh, I confess I am clever though not clever enough to understand most of the legalities of the matter but...but I grasped their meaning well enough. When you left...” She laughed again, her smile too wide to continue.

“You are not distraught?” Andre asked anxiously, wiping the dampened tresses from her cheek with the ball of his thumb. “I should have told you before I departed, I should have asked if this is what you wanted. You wandered off into the rain, I thought that maybe you...”

“Andre, I was looking for you out there!” she beamed, not able to contain a grin at his utterly adorable bewildered stare. “I came as soon as I heard you were arriving, as quickly as I could. I must admit, I’ve not much talent as a nanny. I rather suspect that the Jamesons were ready to let me go before I took flight without forewarning. And then I met Rogers at the door and he revealed to me the papers, informed me that you had gone for a ride by the Fulloch. I had this grand romantic scene in my mind, meeting you on the windswept moors. I took a misstep and, well, it wasn’t quite as amorous as I had pictured, crawling about in the mud. Thank goodness you came along when you did! My champion!”

Andre chuckled, running his fingers through his sodden hair. “You need no champion, Dorothea; you are remarkable on your own!” His kiss now was deep, slow as his mouth at leisure caressed hers, his tongue gently probing, stroking.

Bending beside him, Bliss cleared her throat forcefully until she had his attention, handing him a roll of bandages. “And you’ll need to get that off,” she indicated her sister’s saturated frock, “before you catch your death of! You too, Andre, if you don’t want a case of the sniffles in the morn.” Cotard looked to her pointedly, quirking an eyebrow as he subtly inclined his neck towards the door. “Oh,” Bliss exclaimed, and then louder, “oh! Right then. The room is crowded as it is, so we should...”

“Or, perchance, may I respectfully propose that Andre could get his kit off in his own chamber,” Edmund suggested archly. “I may be a might selfish in the matter, but I would prefer if the Major not despoil *both* of my beloved sisters.”

“Duly noted, my sweetheart,” Hen giggled softly, taking his arm and urging him towards the doorway; the portal clicked softly as it closed behind the small group.

And they were alone together again at last. He shrugged out off his frock coat and undid his neatly tied cravat, unbuttoning his waistcoat. Wrapping his arms about Dorothea, he aided her tremulous, stiff fingers in the unfastening of her gown. Was it by his design that the simple act of assistance would put him in such position as to feel her plump breasts surge against his solid chest with every breath or that his lips should be nestled into the crook of her exposed neck? Or that, as he eased the garment down her shoulders and over her stout bosom, that her hips should shift upwards off the mattress, almost meeting his as he pulled the dress from her waist and finally over her legs. God, he was hard, throbbing like a thing possessed within his wet britches. Bashfully, she crossed her arms across her chest, hiding from view the prominently jutting, rosy shadows of her taut nipples beneath her clinging chemise. It seemed an absurdly silly impulse considering the intimacies they had shared but nonetheless, this was not the circumstance under which she wanted him to first see her naked.

Smiling lovingly, he grabbed one of the blankets Sanderson had fetched and modestly enveloped her in it, tenderly touching her face. Reaching his arm over his shoulder, he snagged the back of his shirt and dragged it up over his head in one swift movement. She looked away timidly as he unabashedly removed his trousers and stockings, leaving him naked before her as he unhurriedly dried himself with a fresh towel laid out for their use. He was all invitingly warm browns, like thick, dark honey from the comb; like bronze. The density of his glossy black fur was engaging, running along his arms, across his broad torso and flat, tight belly, seeming to congregate at his engorged groin.

He winked at her mischievously, “Just because you are shy, mon amour, does not mean I have to be.” She giggled.

And there was his fabulous cock, pounding with his life’s blood; with fervent passion it rose from its dense mane of curls. His pendulous testicles were swollen with his seed, future generations of Cotards swimming within that gloriously velvet skin. He ignored his libidinous cravings for now, seeing the need to focus on more pressing matters, like the care of his dearest. He tied a blanket about his trim waist and took to his knees again before her, holding her ankle delicately in one hand while he managed the bandage with the other. He bound her foot securely, letting his hand roam her calf, stroking tenderly.

“You are so beautiful,” he smiled, tucking her now freed hair behind her ear. “Do me the honor, be my wife?”

“Of course, Andre!” she let out a sob, a tearfully blissful sound as she embraced him. “I love you, so very much! I--” She sniffled contentedly, reaching timorously for the fold in the blanket she had been timidly cloaked in; he ceased the progress of her hand by placing his own atop it. Clasping it between both his hands, he brought her fingers to his lips, kissing one at a time.

“When you are ready, ma chere,” he said smoothly, huskily. “Now rest, ma belle,” he tucked her into the bedding, gathering the pillows beneath her head. He kissed her as if she were the creamiest, most luscious sweet he had ever had the pleasure of savoring.

“I will dream of you,” she pledged beguilingly. “I have since you had departed, every time I have closed my eyes.”

“I was anxious,” he divulged, slightly ashamed of his worries, “that you...”

“I promised to trust you, Andre,” she sighed drowsily, stretching out to caress his face languorously. “I was...troubled when you first disappeared; I admit I behaved a bit foolishly, weeping my eyes out because I absurdly thought that maybe you thought it was best that we not...And, Bliss, she was, well, dubious, despite her care for you. She wanted to protect me. Oh, I’m too embarrassed to even speak it! So, I waited. Stay until I am sleeping? It will be soon.” He nodded and she drifted off as he gazed affectionately at her dappled features relaxed into a state of idyllic peace.


	10. Chapter 10

Lightning cracked against the black night sky like the severe tongue of a whip, illuminating the womanly figure who stood patiently unmoving, ethereally serene, by the unlit hearth of the feminine boudoir. Colonel Alfred Moore looked up in wonder at the coolly indifferent specter of his late wife, Georgiana Rose, reaching his trembling hands out towards her. She did not move. Wind rattled the neglected panes of glass as the storm outside raged a violent war upon the heavens and yet, when she spoke, though her voice was soft, low, he could hear clearly her words, “Major Andre Cotard has returned.”

“Has he,” Moore swallowed desperately, his eyes alighting with hope, “has he come to marry my Bliss after all?”

“He will marry Dorothea.”

“He can’t!” the man insisted vehemently. “The little cocotte is already married to that, that wastrel,” he spat scornfully, “that pretender.”

“No, not any longer,” answered the apparition calmly. “The marriage had been annulled; by decree of the law, she has never been married. Christopher Martin Grieve is but a name of the past now, unlikely to be spoken again. This is perhaps the course of action you should have taken but, of course, you thought no more of your daughter than a worthless trollop to be sold, bargained with. I suppose you did not know of her virtue nor would you ever expect it of her. You were the reason he took flight in the first place, were you not?” Moore did not answer which was an affirmative response in its own right.

“Yes,” continued the phantom, “I could always read you eyes, even when I chose to ignore what they had to say. And, rather than take action, you allowed the mockery of a marriage to remain, squandering the wealth entrusted to you just to ensure that your own daughter suffer as greatly as you could make her.”

“I have suffered!”

“From your own self-pity, maybe.

He began to sob, wailing as he covered his ears with his hands. “Why do you say these things to me, my dearest, my sweet?! Why do you torment me?! Dorothea killed you and didn’t have the good sense enough to die herself! It is her that your malice should be directed at, her whose dreams you should haunt!”

“I love Dorothea as I loved all my children,” the spirit roared. “In life, I cherished them, my little darlings. They were warmth when I found none in you. Why should my wrath be directed towards them when I see that it is you who have caused this pain, this woe! You were meant to be watching them!”

“Women’s work!” he scoffed. “They were always running, off the pair of them, making trouble.”

“You did not even notice they were gone. But I did. I saw them by the incline. Had I in life the time that you have had with them, to think on how you have wasted it, perverted it in your selfish despair, your self-centered melancholia! I will come to you no more, false man!” And with that, she was gone, leaving the Colonel alone, weeping for mercy.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Silent as a whisper, Bliss stole from the room, carefully closing the door behind her so it made no sound but the suggestion of a sigh as the air gusted through the closing portal. Cotard gently touched her face as she turned, her face almost chillingly composed.

“His mind,” she shook her head, exhaling slowly, “is completely consumed, like brain fever. At least now,” she observed grimly, “he can do harm to no one save himself.”

“Are you well?” Edmund inquired, his question met with a decisive and aloof nod of her pretty head, her chestnut curls bobbing. “And the will?”

“I believe your solicitor need not be as talented as you say he is to prove that he has not been of sound mind for quite a many year,” replied Bliss flatly. “And if need be, I can testify to that fact myself.” Andre nodded and she couldn’t help but detect a hint of sadness in the action. “He cannot deny you Kingsharrow any longer and Hen’s child will be recognized as your legitimate heir.”

“What are you doing here?!” Mrs. Joyce demanded, appearing seemingly out of nowhere to swoop in like a protective mother hawk. “You shouldn’t be here! Do you seek to vex him further? Is his torment not great enough for you?”

“Mrs. Joyce, do pull yourself together!” called Sanderson, his authoritative stature appearing at the end of the hallway, slightly out of breath as if he had been chasing after the housekeeper though he kept his commanding and unflappable demeanor. “Loyalties shift and transform, remember where yours lies! You must remember your place,” he hissed through his teeth. Clearing his throat, he straightened into the expertly skilled servant he was. “You will speak with respect when you speak in front of the new lord of the manor,” he bowed his head with due respect to Edmund.

“It is all right, Sanderson,” Bliss spoke nearly out of pity if she hadn’t felt she was no longer capable of the emotion when it came to her father. “Let him have his allies for they have grown few if not nonexistent. She will be precious little help to him now, in any case.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dorothea sighed in supreme contentment as consciousness slowly and languidly came to her, the delightful feel of strong but careful fingers working the flesh about her tender foot, kneading gently. “Mmm,” she smiled against her pillow, “that feels marvelous! Am I still dreaming?” Andre’s hot lips brushed her toes and she giggled, snuggling deeper into her feathered tick. His hand strayed, stroking her calf while his mouth nuzzled the crook at the back of her knee! “Andre!” she cried, scandalized, barely able to suppress her laughter. “My ankle is *not* up there!”

She felt the mattress dip with the weight of his body as he settled next to her. She breathed in deeply, letting it from her lungs gradually as she opened her eyes. She sat up, brushing the long, dull strands of her straight, mousy auburn hair from her face and freckled shoulders. “Something smells,” she said, turning to him, the sheets twisting around her bosom then falling away to her waist, “absolutely delicious! Ooh! And, look, you brought me breakfast too,” she grinned playfully, gazing into those lusciously dark eyes of his, at the self-assured smirk on his thin lips.

“Well, I thought you would be ravenous after missing supper last night,” he told her huskily, leaning in so close that she could taste his warm breath, smell his sandalwood shaving soap. “And that perhaps you would like a bit of food as well.” She giggled, wriggling in the most delicious manner; a jolt rushed to his tightening groin as he began to wonder if she moved that way in...different circumstances. Ooh, just the thought of those voluptuous, freckled thighs parting for him as he led the charge...He kissed her shoulder, moving the burning touch of his mouth to her neck, his tongue skirting along her jaw, pausing to caress the place below her ear where her pulse was resounding. Finally, he claimed her lips, groaning as he sank into the kiss, his fingers plucking at the neckline of her simple shift.

“I’m so sorry, Andre,” she broke the kiss with a giggle, “but I am famished and that breakfast does smells delightful!” He chuckled amiably, kissing her again as he sidled off the bed, retrieved the tray that Bliss had made up for her having assuring Andre that it contained all of her sister’s favorites. She squeaked excitedly as she took it from him, eagerly unfurling the crisp linen napkin, politely laying it across her lap as she picked up her fork and had at it, her hunger making her forget any gracious etiquette as she gulped the food down in mouthfuls. Letting out an easy, pleased sigh, he lay back down upon the bed, folding his arms against the curved headboard and leaning his head against them. He closed his eyes, relaxed in only shirt sleeves and a simple pair of trousers and comfortable to be in her company.

“Dorothea,” he mumbled to himself. “Dorothea,” he was testing the name, rolling it around his tongue with that seductive accent of his. “Dorothea.” At last, when she inquired as to exactly what he was doing, he explained, “It just seems so formal: Dorothea. And I do not much fancy Dodie as an epithet, it just never seemed right to me.”

“Nor me,” she admitted diffidently. “And do not mention Dodo for I have always despised that particular shortening.”

“What would you like to be called, mon amour?”

“Mmm, Madame Cotard!” she teased, glancing over her shoulder and batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly. She let out a merry laugh as he pulled a ridiculous face.

“And you will be,” he guaranteed her with a wink. “So much so, I think you shall get tired of hearing it!”

“Never!” she said with certainty, affectionately taking his hand and giving his fingers a squeeze.

“Thea,” Andre declared, pleased with himself. “Yes, that sounds most agreeable. Intelligent, feminine,” he opened one eye to gave upon the curve of her back beneath the thin linen of her chemise appreciatively, “respectable yet still, mmm, alluring.” She got the impression he was enjoying himself more than was entirely proper, which was utterly satisfactory to Dodie. She perceived herself as a wanton temptress from his viewpoint, an object of voracious desires inspired as well as being a woman deeply treasured, a wife profoundly esteemed. It was a wondrous revelation and she wanted to shout it out, to exclaim it to the stars. But above all, she wanted him.

“Mama called me Thea,” she said quietly, wistfully.

“I am...sorry, ma chere,” he told her solemnly. “I did not mean to...I will not use it again if you do not wish it.”

“No, please do!” she beamed sweetly. “I would like you to call me that, a name just for you. It seems strangely fitting that it should be the name by which my mama had referred to me. I had some time to think while you were away,” she continued and he allowed her to do so uninterrupted, listening intently to her every word. “I was so distressed when I learned of your departure, nearly in anguish! Papa, when he discovered what had transpired, oh, he was a beast, in words and deeds...”

“Oh, mon amour,” he growled in alarm, sitting up so that he may take her into his arms tenderly, soothingly. “If he so much as lay a hand to you...”

“Once, Andre; that’s all it took,” she ensured him. “He showed me the sting of the back of his hand but the once and I was off. You see, I was weeping for I had put my hopes on you liberating me, taking me away with you right then and there. You held all the solutions, the remedies for me. When you were gone, I was...devastated, believing you had abandoned me. And then, I realized: that was not me! I was no swooning, wilting flower! I had pledged to trust in you and that I did but that did not mean I had to wait for you to escape!

“Nanny; it was hardly a refined occupation, not like a genteel governess certainly, but it was the most readily available and I have been friends with the Jamesons for many years. I departed, of my own accord, and I no longer depended on you to resolve my situation. I wanted you, needed you, because I was madly, amazingly in love with you! Then I got Edmund’s coy letter from London and, though he did not but hint, I suspected nonetheless that you two were up to something! My heart dared not hope though it soared at the very thought of seeing you again!”

“I have told you before that I find you to be a most extraordinary gentlewoman,” he said, fiercely that a lady such as her would choose to give her love to a cad like him. His breath quickened as he held her tighter, heated little pants against her neck as it blew the lengthy, thin tresses of her golden brown hair. “Twice as clever as she pretends to be as well as a beautiful, most...desirable lady. Thea, mon amour, remember how you were starved and needed your hunger slaked immediately...”

“Andre,” she laughed, “what are you on about...OH!” she cried, as she turned round to face him, placing her hand upon his upper thigh only to feel the adamant firmness of his splendid cockstand. She did not remove her touch, instead began to caress the wild thing, watching coyly as he gritted his teeth and his chest rumbled in ecstasy. Her own thighs were slick with moisture spilling over from her tender sex and oiling her susceptible flesh. “Andre,” she contrived such demure innocence, “have you a craving you yearn to sate?”

He chuckled raunchily, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger as he drew her to him for a greedy kiss. “How can I deny my lover,” she asked, mischievously slipping from the circle of his arms and off the mattress. She lay the breakfast tray upon a table in her adjoining sitting room and, strolling back to the bed from where Andre watched fervently, she undid the lacings of her chemise at her wondrous bosom, pushing first one sleeveless shoulder down her arm and then the other until the gown lost its moorings and fell in a puddle at her feet. “That,” she picked up the thread of her earlier question, running her fingers beguilingly along the outside of her plush breast, “which he fought so valiantly to champion?”

Good God, but she was more radiant than he could ever have imagined, her pale skin mottled with clusters of ginger spots from her chest to the round little belly. Some men, they never gave a woman’s breasts a second thought other than to grab an awkward feel whilst he was flopping around atop her; others enjoyed a vigorous pinch and a nibble in private company; and still others truly appreciated the full neckline of a generously plunging décolletage and the softness of a lovely pair of rotund titties. Andre, well, he belonged to the elite, those who revered the shape and form of the womanly bosom as fine art, longing to taste every inch of the abundant swells, to submerge his face in their lavish flesh. The shape of a nipple could arouse him to near agony. And never had he gazed upon a pair as divine as his Thea’s.

Enclosing an arm about her waist, he tugged her onto the bed. She put up just the correct amount of resistance to inflame his ardor, wiggling against him in maidenly inexperience, making him furious with lust. In one swift movement, he cupped the backs of her kneeling legs with his arm and swept them from under her; she fell backwards, laughing, onto the plush tick, spread out beside him like a banquet for a ravening man.

“Am I so irresistible?” she asked with a quietly giddy titter. To see herself reflected in his eyes, that adoring, hungry gaze of his drinking her in leisurely as his hand caressed her stomach, just a breath’s distance from the throbbing notch between her thighs, his mouth consuming her kisses softly yet covetously, it was as if she was being truly seen for the first time in her life. And he was appreciating the sight exceedingly. He was invitingly strong against her naked skin, his muscles straining against his tanned flesh as she worked off his crisp white shirt to reveal the golden honey, thickened with silky black down, of his arms and chest beneath.

“Do you truly need to ask me that?” he replied throatily, devouring the elegant curve of her neck with eager lips, the rasping suggestion of his tongue burning across her collarbone. She gasped, arcing her back as his large grasp encircled her plush breasts, bowing his head in order to skim his tongue across their heated surface. She thrust her fingers into his thick hair as he bowed his head, working her fingertips into the enticing silver at his temples to the rich brown; it was like silk thread to her touch yet distinctly masculine in its scent and texture.

To his enchantment, the wide, fair pink aureole surrounding the rigid peaks of her bosoms were speckled with rosy freckles. He sampled each one with the tip of his moist tongue, grinning as her grasp on his mane tightened and low, desperate whimpers came from her throat. Lapping at the distended nub until it was glistening with his saliva, he pulled it into her mouth and suckled her vigorously, voraciously; first one and then the other, he fed like a greedy newborn babe. Nursing like a desirous child, his lips smacking noisily against her sensitive flesh until the only sound louder was the ecstatic anguish of her cries. His fingers nimbly rolled and pinched at the nipple his mouth did not occupy, stroking each until they were painfully erect. Gathering the supple globes of both her breasts in his powerful clutch as he pressed them together so that her two receptive tips nearly met, allowing him to engulf the two at once.

As he nestled his mouth and nose into the valley between her bosom, his fingers strayed, making lazy circles against her somewhat stout tummy and dipping still further to the feathery rust-colored hair that modestly concealed her moist womanhood, admiring its texture, yearning to breath in the heady perfume of her again. Expertly spreading her engorged, blushing lips, he glided inside of her secret place, thrilled and exhilarated by the slickness he felt within, her flooding juices. She was panting, tears rolling down her cheeks, dappled with a clumsy and abandoned blush, as he found the precious morsel jutting from the damp, inflamed folds of skin and rolled his thumb around it.

She could feel a spiral in her stomach, deep inside her womb, her privileged core; it was tightening, twirling in the most wonderfully elusive manner. Her arms and legs tingled, from the very roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, she was aglow with the kind of pleasure she only had dreamt existed. Given to her by the man she loved. Who loved her. There was nothing so delicious in the whole, wide, wild world! He kissed her on the mouth, a kiss which she ardently returned, hugging to him as if only through his carnal ministrations could she truly feel. Oh so confident, oh so smugly, he ran his finger along her lips before, one again, he lowered his mouth down, down her generously curved body, leaving a fiery path as he went.

Her full thighs, those delectably round hips, were parted submissively for his touch, moving in small circles with the caress of his fingers, her delightfully plump backside raising from the mattress. And he had a flawless view of it all as he positioned himself between her legs, draping them over his shoulders as he preformed the deepest, most intimate kiss of all, pressing his lips to the smooth, honeyed flesh of her pussey. He gorged himself on her, sucking her dear little quim, insatiably gulping the brackish nectar of her feminine longing. She was trembling as she clung to the bedclothes, moaning, inarticulately pleading with him to fulfill her. Oh, how he would fill her. He took his satisfaction in sipping what would be the last of her syrupy virgin emissions, a sacrifice she would make to his male alter. For him, only ever for him. The thought made him quake with want.

She sounded a wordless protest as his kiss returned to her mouth; she could taste herself on his pleasantly coarse tongue. She had been close to climax, her whole being shivered with it; she was ready for him. His mighty cock, stiff as steel robed in warm velvet, leapt from its confines as he removed his breeches, chuckling deeply as he kissed her. “Do you still wish to inquire of me if I find you irresistible?” he murmured against her lips as he guided her hand to his fervent shaft.

She surrounded the rigid column, her fingers barely making it around his fat girth as she watched the bliss soften his countenance to rapture. She ran her thumb about the corpulent head, feeling the beads of his impending come lubricate her finger as well as his smooth skin. She lifted her hand to her lips and, groaning euphorically, sucked his piquant juice from her fingertips. With a growl, he snatched her fingers from her mouth and smothered in with his own, kissing her like a savage.

He settled his brawny mass atop her, making sure to shift most of his weight to his arms and the knees that nudged between her own, opening her to him as he mounted her, ready for the charge. He paused, as furious as he was in his yearning, to meet her eyes, to be sure that this was what she truly wanted. “Please,” she sobbed, wrapping her legs about his waist, “please...I need you so much, Andre!”

He could not have held himself back after hearing her words had he wanted to. Mindful of being as gentle as possible, he poised himself at the ready and thrust forward, burying his thundering affair in to the roots. She cried out and he felt the rush of blood pool about his base and testicles, but the pain was nothing compared with the elation of sensuous joy. He withdrew and plunged onward again, ripping away the last of her tender virtue. The wonder of it amazed and confounded him in the most captivating of ways; he touched her face in awe of the gift she had given him as he hesitated, letting her raw, snug sheath adjust to his crude assault. He kissed the moisture from her cheeks, tenderly kissed her lips until a wanton wiggle of her bottom sent him careening over the edge.

He’d taken his share of virgins in the past but it had never been like this, the surrender had never been so victorious, so complete. He drove his prick to the very heart of her, filling her belly with his unappeasable, portly manhood. Their tummies met in an upward surge with every avid movement, his glossy black pelt abrading her sensitive, sweaty flesh, his muscular chest pleasantly chafing her tender nipples as he pressed himself to her. A primitive urge was shaping itself in his tautening groin, one to deluge her womb with his seed, to make his masculine claim on her. He flushed as if he were the virgin, burying his face in her hair as he enclosed her in his arms and his cock continued its blissful rampage.

She was so whole with him snuggled all the way inside of her; he filled empty places she had never even known were there. He was larger than she, nearly overwhelming her body with his own, and so powerful, commanding, effortlessly dominating her. Moments stretched to a lifetime as he plundered her, possessed, possessive of her. They moved as one, an instinctive dance between man and woman, equally fulfilling for both. She cried out, nuzzling his shoulder as she reached her zenith, her fingernails scored hard, desperate ruts in the flesh of his back as her inner muscles squeezed him in her completion. The scrumptious and sudden siege of her tight sleeve tumbled him over the brink of the abyss and he called out her name in his instant of ecstasy, pumping torrents of his white hot sperm deep, deep into her. His loins overflowed with his sticky semen, until, at last, his dominion over her was absolute. Her greedy quim consumed all of him and he felt as if his very heart itself might pour from his stones.

They lay together, entwined, disheveled, breathing in strong pants as they both sought to pull fresh air into their excitedly constricting chests. “Oh Andre!” she was grinning, making his spirit soar, his blood pounding in his ears. “Andre, Andre, my love! My only! Say it will be like this forever!”

He chuckled, kissing her luscious lips, savoring her mouth. “Always, ma Thea,” he pledged ardently, taking her hand in his and pressing it to his thundering heart. “It may kill me, but I cannot imagine, mon amour, ever craving less of you! It will be the most divine death anyone e‘er has suffered!” They laughed as he settled beside her, embracing her adoringly, dotingly. “I didn’t hurt you much?” he inquired, concern creasing his brow.

She lifted her leg and considered her bandaged foot for a moment, rotating it in careful, cautious circles. “Well, the ankle’s a bit stiff but not so much as before...”

“No, no,” he clarified, clearing his throat as he placed his long fingers over her lower stomach, “I meant *here*, you know, when I...” He let the rest of his sentence go unspoken until realization dawned within her eyes.

“Oh. OH! Nay,” she answered merrily, giggling. “A bit sore but...ooh, it’s just so heavenly! You are so beautiful,” she bit her lip, “and mine, all mine!” She laughed, kissing his assured smirk, laying her cheek against his firm belly. He lay unabashedly naked, folding his arms once again beneath his head as he stretched languorously across the tousled duvet. She drew circles about his flat nipples with her fingernails, running her fingertips through his glossy hair. “Did you really trace and pursue Christopher Martin only to get him to agree to this arrangement?”

“I did!” Andre confirmed with no small amount of arrogance. “If only just to see the look on the bastard’s face as I struck him!”

“So, tell me, are you satisfied now?” she quirked an eyebrow at him and he grinned down at her, feeling that marvelous stirring in his loins.

“Not nearly,” he laughed, drawing her to him again as he enveloped her in his strong, loving embrace. “It was for you, ma Thea,” he murmured into the delicate shell of her ear as he coerced her onto her stomach, reclining atop her, her full bottom pushing into his lower stomach, his groin, as his cock snuggled against the coy petals of her womanly blossom. He bathed his shaft in her surging nectar before raising his hips and lunging into her. “I love you,” he moaned, stroking her cheek with his lips. “Always. And I will be more than happy to prove it to you, ma chere, over and again and again and again...”

“Oh! Andre!”

And so, one by one, the curse was lifted from the Moore children as they, themselves, chose to break free of it. And they found happiness.

Bliss would always remain beautiful, even after birthing four children by Sanjay, her husband until death. She sang more sweetly, glowed more brightly than she had even in the bloom of her youth for her love was unqualified. She shone brightly as the Jewel of Bombay, where she lived with her beloved spouse at his vast familial residence.

Edmund and Henrietta Moore became lord and lady of Kingsharrow and all who visited, who had known the manor and grounds previous to Colonel Moore’s unfortunate departure, had claimed that it had not felt as warm or as inviting since Georgiana Rose had been mistress. Sanderson proved himself a faithful retainer and Rogers remained delightfully irrepressible as always, and all welcomed the Moores’ first child, one of three, a girl Hen named for her mother, Flora. As for their father, the Colonel, he was not commonly spoken of though it was whispered that in Mrs. Joyce he found a companion, even in the confines of his madness.

But it was the middle child, Dorothea, the most unpromising of the lot, who found greatest contentment and joy after years of believing that such a thing was not possible. Cotard’s wealth afforded them the convenience of travel and it is said he lavished gifts upon her though nothing could make her as happy as his presence. For they never did stop loving each other, never did the passion disperse, as he had predicted it would not. She gave him three babies and, whether it was Bath, Bombay or a field of battle, they were inseparable. They could deny each other nothing. The eldest Moore sister would never be adored as Bliss was save by one: her husband. And in the end, that was all she ever wanted and he saw that she came to shine as radiantly as the brightest star, more warmly than the sun. It was, in a word, bliss.  
The End


End file.
